Aban's Blog

It's been a long time since...

2004-10-19T14:31:00.000-07:00

Yep. It's like two weeks since I last wrote in this thing, and I sincerely wish that I had a good reason for slacking off. But I don't so I'll leave it at that. Anyway, today I kinda got into a fight via message boards with some people about punk rock. It's a little hypocritical, because I hate it when people delineate genres way too specifically (if The Clash aren't punk, then I don't know what is), but it also really pisses me off when people call Green Day and Blink 182 true punk music (Green Day was actually a leader in the punk revival, but has slipped more into pop-punk than anything else - Blink falls into the category of Crap, even though they used to be pop-punk...kinda now they're doing this weird emo pop shit). Anyway, I was mad because everyone was saying that someone isn't a punk because they're conservative. I say that politically charged punk came about as a reaction to the two conservative governments that came about around 1980 - Margaret Thatcher in England and Ronald Reagan in the U.S. - and all "punk" bands that are around now fall into the category of "punk revival." Since the revival is based on a movement in the 1980s that cried for political change away from conservatism, many revival punk bands tend to mirror this attitude, not because there is a desperate need for social or political change so much, but because it's now become part of the genre. But really, as Greg Graffin - the lead singer for Bad Religion (one of the bands that was around during the original punk movement, but only got famous during the revival) - would say, punk is "the personal expression of uniqueness that comes from the experiences of growing up in touch with our human ability to reason and ask questions. " That means you could be either liberal or conservative. Some dude corrected me and said that punk isn't a political movement, it's an artistic movement which started as a reaction to the arena rock of the '70s. In my opinion, I think it started out in the mid '70s as a reaction to arena rock, but it progressed into the political movement that is one of it's most distinguisghing features now. Anyway, I thought I had to write it down because I AM on a quest to discover the true meaning of punk music, at least for me. Everyone's willing to tell you what they think "punk" is, but no one can really agree. I guess I'm just fed up with it.

Anyway, I signed up for my Jan. term today. I'm taking a bridge class where all my homework involves playing cards. It rocks. I gave up on my opportunity to go to Argentina. It was just going to be too unnecessarily complicated to figure out payment and registration when you need one to get the other. So I gave up and told myself I could always go sophomore year. This way I get to spend some time with my friends in Sherman, and I don't have to worry about speaking an excess of Spanish next semester.

What I'm listening to:
The Misfits - Hollywood Babylon

Sublime song of the day:
Jailhouse

Oh, and speaking of Sublime, that song I talked about last time was called "Free Loop Dub." I said I'd figure it out eventually.

Don't mess with tea...

2004-10-03T12:04:00.000-07:00

I've just made the dangerous, and perhaps lethal, mistake of combining two substances: Sleepytime tea, and Korean Red Ginseng Tea. For those of you that are ignorant of the workings of the various teas, Sleepytime knocks you out like none other, and the one purpose of ginseng is to combat fatigue. It's a pretty interesting combination. I feel like I want to go run a mile underneath the covers of my bed.

This weekend I took a road trip to Austin. Funny thing is I left Sherman for Dallas at 4:30, and I decided I was going on the trip at about 3:00. I went on a whim pretty much. I knew I wanted to go to Austin to see one of my favorite bands at the moment, Against Me!, at Emo's on Saturday night. Problem was I didn't have a single plan about the trip. I didn't know if I could get a car, get a travel buddy, get a place to stay, get to the concert in Austin on my own, etc.. All I had with me was the feeling that I HAD to get to Austin. Over the course of the ride home, I left a voicemail on my brother's phone to see if I could stay in Waco, got my friend Bobby asking his parents if he could leave for the weekend, came up with the very rudiments of a plan, and called my mom and my house (but didn't get through to either). I still had NOTHING. Somehow it worked out. I got to see the concert, see my friends from Austin (and Bobby got to see some buddies from Trinity - one guy WAS the guitarist Slash for Guns 'n' Roses, I swear). We drove A LOT. I didn't realize how tired I was and how sick of the road I was until I got a ride back from Dallas to Sherman. I couldn't wait to get off the road, and that was with about 5 miles left - after driving probably close to 700 miles the rest of the weekend. I actually didn't leave on the trip for the sole purpose of seeing a concert; I also wanted to see some friends, listen to some music, see my brother, and also to just drive. I love driving, and I miss my van. This weekend ruled because I just got to drive the minivan over another thousand mile marker (we're at 113,265, i think), and I added a new scratch or 5 on the sliding door on the passenger side. I guess it's a little weird to love a car like that, especially a damn minivan. Oh well.

For now, the tea trip has forced me to stop writing, but I will continue any deep thoughts later...

What I'm listening to:
Ben Harper - Two Hand Of A Prayer

Sublime song of the day:
That one on Robbin' The Hood that has the bassline that goes "dooooo doooo doodie doodie dooo do" - I can't remember the name of the song, but I "doo" remember rocking out to it while I was driving through a parking garage this weekend. Check back for updates later, for I will soon find out the name of that song.

Perrier is shit, I'm switching to Pellegrino.

2004-09-30T23:41:00.000-07:00

The Italians are better anyway. Damn French. Only those who drink carbonated water like me will understand what I'm talking about. To everyone else, it doesn't matter, you'll get it just about the same without having an extensive knowledge of carbonated water brands and their respective countries of origin. Anyway, I'm back to studying late at night because of my wacked sleep schedule. I'm also a little sick right now (I'm crazy stuffed up), and I'm taking in all the soup, Ramen, and green tea I can. Today I was feeling so awful that after class I took a 45 minute shower (in the handicapped stall, so I pretty much had room to do laps), went to lunch, and then passed out for a five-hour nap. It was GLORIOUS. Then in the daze of having a cold and still in the daze of waking up after a super-long nap, I found myself playing poker. Texas Hold 'Em. $5 buy in. High card deals first. It was a blur kinda, seeing as this was the first time I've ever played poker with real money. I didn't know all the rules, and once I learned them, I started to do pretty well. I was at the table longer than my roomate. One of these days I'll win big. But not now, and I'm still a little sore from losing my five bucks. I'll go get some ice. No. Wait, you're supposed to warm sore muscles. Oh well, it doesn't matter, I'm not going to ice/warm anything, anyway.

What I'm listening to:
Ryan Adams - Come Pick Me Up
(from the album Heartbreaker)

Sublime song of the day:
We're Only Gonna Die For Our Arrogance
(originally a song by Bad Religion)

This train is bound for glory...

2004-09-30T02:11:00.000-07:00

It's late I know, but I'm bored and can't sleep. My roomate is still downstairs playing either poker or monopoly. I could never understand the popularity of monopoly. It's always exciting at the beginning, but I thinks that's because it was usually an adult who wanted to play with us when we were little. That adult probably had two motives behind playing with us: one, he or she wanted to murder us at a game of dealing with money, or two, he or she was forced to play monopoly when he/she was little and wants to pass on the pain of all the boredom, tears, monotony of a monopoly game, and then wants to force us to ask the question, "Where have the last four hours gone?" I guess it's like the shaggy dog joke; it's only fun to initiate people into the club of those who have already sat through the progression of the joke to get to the crappy punch line. And the punch line of playing a game of monopoly is: "This game takes too damn long to play, bro. You have just wasted a helluva lot of time." Have you ever heard of a short monopoly game? They don't exist. I was always a fan of the Railroads. If you could get all four, people would be SCREWED. But no one is ever willing to give up their railroads. Everyone likes them.

It kind of reminds me about how much of a railroad town Sherman is. There's a spillway about 6 blocks away from the college, and other railroads completely surround the campus. But it hasn't bothered me yet, the sounds never seem close enough to really break through to my attention. They just kind of stay in the background. Only today did I really seem to notice when I heard a whistle. One of my friends and I joked about how the train conductors probably pull the whistle like that late at night just to wake people up, especially in college towns. I'm tempted to go ghost hunting along the tracks, but I think I'm a little too scared - not of the ghosts, but of being killed by a train. I thought I found some abandoned tracks, but I now actually think I was wrong, and I don't want to find out the hard way.

I'm drinking some Powerade that I made myself from that powder stuff. I used a LOT to mix this. I need to cover up the nastiness of Sherman water. I've found out that the only ways I can take the water is with Powerade in it, after brushing my teeth, with green tea (shut up - I know I'm weird), or really cold. Even if you filter the water, it still tastes pretty bad. I guess it's things like the railroads and the water that you don't really notice about a place when you're only visiting, even when it's for a few days.

That's all for now. I've covered a couple worthless topics, but I figured I owed it to myself to write a bit, because I haven't the last few days.

What I'm listening to:
Guster - Come Downstairs And Say Hello

Sublime song of the day:
Bob Marley Medley
(it's what the title of the BLOG entry for today comes from)

I see dead people...

2004-09-25T13:05:00.001-07:00

Ok, not really, but I definately believe in them. My buddy Nick and I are both obsessed with ghosts, and it's become our weekend tradition to go hunting for them. It started out a couple weeks ago when we went and saw a movie, and one of the previews was for a movie called White Noise, where they use something called EVP to communicate with the dead. EVP is how sometimes if you take a picture of a TV screen while it's off, sometimes a face will show up when you get it developed. It also works if you do it with a video camera, and sometimes if you have an audio recorder, voices will show up that weren't there before. It sounds a little fake, but if you do a Google search of EVP, a bunch of sites will pop up and tell you more about it. Anyway, me and Nick have been doing some reading about ghosts, and we found out that Sherman is supposed to be a VERY haunted city. At the same website, we learned that the back of Wynne Chapel on the Austin College campus is supposed to be haunted. The cleaning crew won't go in to clean it up with less than three people, because it's so unpleasant in there. The chapel is open to students 24 hours a day, and all you need to get in is to swipe your student ID. We went two weeks ago, and it was kinda lame, but we also went in last night with the audio recorder. One website said that to make contact, you have to have a positive attitude, ask questions, and give plenty of time for answers. We went in for close to 10 minutes and recorded the whole time. After we left the chapel, we walked to the front steps and sat down to listen to our tape. Besides our voices, it was all silence, until it got to the very end. On the tape as we were leaving, Nick said to any ghosts that would be in the chapel, "We thank you for your participation, and if you have anything else to say, terrific, please say it now," and then he pauses midsentence for a moment, but continues on saying, "on EVP." After he said that, we looked at each other and shrugged, because nothing happened. While we were sitting on those steps listening to the tape, we got to that part, and in the brief pause between when Nick says "now" and "on EVP," there was this growl/screech/scream that was played on the tape, and after he finishes saying "EVP" there's a second growl from the same source. After we heard this on the tape, Nick and I look at each other, and then we stood up and just started running as fast as we could away from the chapel. I was freaked out of my mind. This is our first night of being halfway serious about something that started as a joke, and we hear a scream in the background. Nick and I were scared out of our minds. Still, nobody I've told really believes me. But now I always have to ask you when you doubt my story, what would I have to gain from bullshitting you? I'm the one who gets so scared I can't think when I hear the tape, and the story really isn't meant to freak you out, but rather to tell you why I believe in ghosts. If you still don't believe me, tell me, and I'll try to find a way for you to listen to the tape.

Odd...

2004-09-23T13:51:00.000-07:00

I could have sworn that today was September 24, not the 23. I know I'm wrong, and it kinda feels cool to think that it's like I gained a day. But anyway, I've set off on a mission to introduce myseld to late '70s/early '80s British street punk. I don't know what has started it, but the urge to yell, "OI! OI! OI!" is sometimes overpowering. I need to go CD shopping (but no one is willing to drive me to any CD stores, and I'll be damned if I'm gonna walk a damn mile or so to the record store - I miss the minivan) because I have a list of 40 albums or so that I would like to buy - most Oi! punk and the rest are just punk essentials that I need to buy. I have such a long list not entirely because I want ALL those records, but this is some pretty obscure music that we're talking about here, and Sherman didn't turn out to be the punk Mecca that I thought it was going to be, so I figured that if I have THAT many records I want to buy, then it would be easier to find at least one of the records. To me, there's not much worse than going into a record store looking for an album and not being able to find it. If I leave empty-handed (which I rarely ever do) or leave with a CD I didn't go in to look for, then I feel defeated. And the feeling of excitement about discovering a CD that you weren't looking for still isn't as cool as the moment right before you listen to the CD you've been meaning to buy for a while. Anyway, I've got a list of Oi! punk bands like Sham 69, Blitz, 4 Skins, The Business ( http://www.oithebusiness.com/ - now THAT'S a punk band for you), GBH, Stiff Little Fingers, Cockney Rejects, Angelic Upstarts, and a bunch more other bands that aren't Oi!, but still punk. I figure I'll buy something like 2 or 3 of them a month, and spread this era of discovery over the rest of the year. My year with street punk music. It's also hard to find these bands to even download, so burning them for the most part is out of the question, because I may be the person who listens to the most punk here at AC, which is a scary thought, because I really don't listen to punk music as much as some punks. I can't find any guy or girl that would have these albums to rip either. Well, I guess I'll actually have to buy these albums. Maybe I'll steal some. That would be fun. For now, I guess I'll have to listen to my own meager collection of punk CDs.

What I'm listening to:
Agnostic Front - The Blame
(from the album Something's Gotta Give)

In the wee small hours of the morning...

2004-09-23T02:28:00.000-07:00

Last night was a first in the long list of college experinces that every student will have at one time seen/done by graduation: I was an hour and a half away from pulling an all-nighter. Which is close enough to actually doing so. It's a little odd to fall asleep just as the sun is starting to rise. Damn procrastination forced me to do so. But I got it done, that's what really matters. Now I can't sleep because I really knocked my internal clock off of its rhythm. My 5 hour nap this afternoon makes me antsy at night. So now I can't sleep, and I'm listening to my new laid back mix to try to make me sleepy. That and boring myself by typing. I have nothing interesting to talk about. I have to at least say a joke to make this entry worth reading, so here I go...
Q: What's funnier than a zombie baby?
A: A zombie baby dressed as Dan Rather.

-or-

Q: What's red and gray and splashes?
A: A zombie baby playing in a puddle.......of brains.

Disturbing...

What I'm listening to:
Bob Marley - Stir It Up
(from the greatish hits album Legend)

September 21

2004-09-21T23:23:00.000-07:00

I'm a little pissed right now: the study room is filled with girls. Don't get me wrong, I love the fact that a bunch of girls hang out at our dorm, but not when I have to read half of a book and write a damn paper. I need to focus, because I don't like reading in my dorm. But the library's closed, and my last resort - the study room - is filled with a lot of loud girls and a bunch of guys who are so girl crazy that it's almost sickening. And it's in the STUDY ROOM. That's the official name, not "The Meeting Room For Annoying People." I love college, and I love a lot the people here, but I'm really annoyed with my floor. There are always a bunch of pretty weird and clingy dudes always excited to hang out, as long as we never leave our floor. There's this one dude who's all skinny and sickly looking, and all he ever does is sit in his room and talk on Instant Messenger or play Minesweeper. I do both of those things, but not in the excess that this dude does. Today I walked up the stairs (his door is always open and is right across the hall from the stairwell, so I see him every damn day) and he kinda dorkily smiled at me with the glare of the computer screen the only thing lighting the dark room. I almost broke out laughing because it reminded me of an episode of King of the Hill. I never watch the show anymore, but when I used to, I remember there was this one episode where Hank is in someone's house and is trying to find the bathroom and opens a door to what he thinks is the door to the toilet. Instead, there's this really pale, skinny guy sitting in the complete dark who kinda smiles at him and wheezes. Hank screams and slams the door and runs away. Everytime I see the dude I think of that episode, and one of these days I know I'm just going to burst out laughing and run away. Besides that it's pretty cool. The football players are tolerable, but I feel out of place with them - I'm usually the only non-football-playing guy with them, which is sometimes awkward. Well, for now the shrill white noise emanating from the Study Room has ceased; anyway, it's close to the end of visiting hours, so I'm probably safe to go use the room for its intended purpose.

What I'm listening to:
Ryan Adams - The Shadowlands
(from the EP Love Is Hell Pt. 1)

First Blog - EVER

2004-09-20T20:49:00.000-07:00

I gave in. I said I'd never make a blog, but I gave in and made one. I guess there's something that I like about writing stuff out by hand, but, alas, my laziness has forced me to find an easier way: a way that everyone can read! I still can't believe I'm getting a blog...

What I'm listening to:

Bad Religion - Come Join Us
(from the album The Gray Race)