Monday, May 24, 2010
They're all vampires, anyway
I was walking by this poster displaying many faces of various individuals, and I stopped to get a closer look. It turns out it was a Red Cross advertisment to promote blood donations. The caption above all the faces was "what do all these people have in common?" and below it read "their lives were all saved by people they will never meet." At first, I just took it at face value, but reading it again, it does sound kind of ominous for the donors... are they dead? Red Cross seems pretty sure that they will never get to meet the donors who saved them (yes, on the poster the word never was in italics). Does the Red Cross simply detain them or deport them to places they willbe unable to meet the donees? Or is it just a very extensive monitoring program, like teams of Red Cross vans that follow blood donors and if they get too close to a chance 'meeting' with a person they saved, they quickly intervene? So many unanswered questions from this seemingly simple poster... I guess the only way I'll figure them out is if I donate blood, then try to track down who my blood goes to, and then try and meet them.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
More Reliable than Tom Petty?
Tenacious D ain't got nothin on Relient K. The Christian-rock band with a purposely misspelled name to avoid copyright infringment has only been around for 12 years or so, but when I first heard about them a few months ago, I felt like I had completely missed the party. Everyone seemed put off by their religious spin on what I can generally describe as some of the most clever music I have heard in a really long time. Have you heard of them? You probably have, since I seem to be the only one that hasn't.
Right, but this post isn't one to praise their creativity, it's more to defend the one part of their music that might be a little bit too "relieble." I'm talking, of course, about the 4-chord structure the band adheres to more tightly than that wierd vegan-grain thai-fry my roomate cooks sticks to the dirty dishes. E, and the open variants of A, B, and C# are the culprits, and between the multiple permutations of this group and moving a capo around the neck of the guitar, it's present in ALL of the acoustic songs and many of the lesser-played ones. It's not enough to label them as a one-trick pony though (cue song, May the horse be with you), because it's not what they're displaying in the song. It's more like the foundation, and it's understandable that you'd reuse a fantastic foundation because hey, it worked last time, and no one sees the foundation of a building except an appraiser anyway!
Keeping up with this metaphor, the walls of the house are the lyrics, clever and easy to sing along to. A catchy drum beat is the attractive garden in the front and the electric guitars are the pleasent neighbors. I suppose the harmonies could be less common, but that is certainly a personal preference. Let's just say it's a unique lawn ornament that some people think is guady.
If you've never heard RK, then let me suggest a few songs: they're a really wide variety of styles, so listen to more than one if you don't like the first one! I tried to avoid the ones that everyone knows (from the radio) so that you could have a fresh taste.
Recommended K:
Curl Up and Die
Here I Go
Sadie Hawkins Dance
Must Have Done Something Right
Right, but this post isn't one to praise their creativity, it's more to defend the one part of their music that might be a little bit too "relieble." I'm talking, of course, about the 4-chord structure the band adheres to more tightly than that wierd vegan-grain thai-fry my roomate cooks sticks to the dirty dishes. E, and the open variants of A, B, and C# are the culprits, and between the multiple permutations of this group and moving a capo around the neck of the guitar, it's present in ALL of the acoustic songs and many of the lesser-played ones. It's not enough to label them as a one-trick pony though (cue song, May the horse be with you), because it's not what they're displaying in the song. It's more like the foundation, and it's understandable that you'd reuse a fantastic foundation because hey, it worked last time, and no one sees the foundation of a building except an appraiser anyway!
Keeping up with this metaphor, the walls of the house are the lyrics, clever and easy to sing along to. A catchy drum beat is the attractive garden in the front and the electric guitars are the pleasent neighbors. I suppose the harmonies could be less common, but that is certainly a personal preference. Let's just say it's a unique lawn ornament that some people think is guady.
If you've never heard RK, then let me suggest a few songs: they're a really wide variety of styles, so listen to more than one if you don't like the first one! I tried to avoid the ones that everyone knows (from the radio) so that you could have a fresh taste.
Recommended K:
High of 75
Mood Rings
I'm Lion-O
Silly Shoes
Forward MotionCurl Up and Die
Here I Go
Sadie Hawkins Dance
Must Have Done Something Right
Monday, May 10, 2010
Lost Predictions
I was not always a Lost fan. In fact, three years ago I thought Lost was a cultish, awful show that sucked people in and spit out obsessed, marketable fans of every age group. That was before I had watched a single episode. Then, through word of mouth, I heard that many fans were abandoning the series because it got too confusing and unfollowable due to its new relationship with time travel. That's when I decided it was okay to start watching it.
So while season 5 aired, I got caught up on seasons 1 through 4; and then before the 6th season aired, I watched the 5th. So now we are back in the present (both in my recounting and in the show's current season. Well, technically back to 'the present' in Lost is more like 2004 or 2005, I suppose) and the final few episodes of the final season are airing in the next few weeks. So here is where I make predictions that I can either be proud of when they come true, or laugh at my misdirection when they prove false.
SPOILERS, but really no one reads this blog anyway, so SPOILERS!
So what will happen in the final 3 episodes, approximately four hours, of the show? We've probably gotten all we will get about the 'mythological backstory' of the island. The 'rules' of the smoke monster are very likely what Jack guessed: he can't kill them directly, just push them into situations where they kill themselves. Very likely, I'd bet that by the beginning of the last episode, only Jack, Sawyer, and Kate will be alive, and the smoke can kill Kate, so he might use Kate as leverage to force Sawyer to kill himself. So prediction 1: all mains will be 'dead' except Jack by the last 45 minutes of the last episode.
But no one would sponsor a show with that depressing of an ending. Jack's said repetedly that he's willing to be the new 'Jacob' and stay on the island to keep SM under wraps, but I don't see that happening. More likely, Desmond does something silly and psuedo-sciency like going down to the 'island core' or the 'wheel' that moves the island and breaks it. The ensuing EM energy released links all the consciences of the Lost cast to their alternate-reality versions we've been seeing clips of throughout this season. They'll all be 'safe' and 'alive' but retain their memories of the island and their deaths. Perhaps the EM energy will 'destroy' the reality that has been the show of Lost for the past 6 seasons, leaving the characters' conciences only 1 reality to cling to. If this does happen, I suspect Desmond will be isolated in the destroyed reality, acting as some sort of 'lock' to keep the SM inside of it.
Okay, that prediction was a little bit too detailed, and probably will not come true now that I've put that much thought into it. But for a more realistic prediction, can we all agree that SM will not get off the island and will be thwarted by the candidates? Or is that too vauge?
Final prediction of today: SM destroys Whitmore's entire team, but Whitmore (probably in death for drah-mah) scoffs and says something like 'it doesn't matter, everything is going as planned' reffering to the fact that he knows he will revert back to the alternate reality if Desmond succeeds. Oh, and probably in someone's final breath (glasses lady? i don't remember her name) they destroy both the sub and the plane.
Whelp! That's all I have for now. I'll see soon enough how much is just a bunch of crap!
So while season 5 aired, I got caught up on seasons 1 through 4; and then before the 6th season aired, I watched the 5th. So now we are back in the present (both in my recounting and in the show's current season. Well, technically back to 'the present' in Lost is more like 2004 or 2005, I suppose) and the final few episodes of the final season are airing in the next few weeks. So here is where I make predictions that I can either be proud of when they come true, or laugh at my misdirection when they prove false.
SPOILERS, but really no one reads this blog anyway, so SPOILERS!
So what will happen in the final 3 episodes, approximately four hours, of the show? We've probably gotten all we will get about the 'mythological backstory' of the island. The 'rules' of the smoke monster are very likely what Jack guessed: he can't kill them directly, just push them into situations where they kill themselves. Very likely, I'd bet that by the beginning of the last episode, only Jack, Sawyer, and Kate will be alive, and the smoke can kill Kate, so he might use Kate as leverage to force Sawyer to kill himself. So prediction 1: all mains will be 'dead' except Jack by the last 45 minutes of the last episode.
But no one would sponsor a show with that depressing of an ending. Jack's said repetedly that he's willing to be the new 'Jacob' and stay on the island to keep SM under wraps, but I don't see that happening. More likely, Desmond does something silly and psuedo-sciency like going down to the 'island core' or the 'wheel' that moves the island and breaks it. The ensuing EM energy released links all the consciences of the Lost cast to their alternate-reality versions we've been seeing clips of throughout this season. They'll all be 'safe' and 'alive' but retain their memories of the island and their deaths. Perhaps the EM energy will 'destroy' the reality that has been the show of Lost for the past 6 seasons, leaving the characters' conciences only 1 reality to cling to. If this does happen, I suspect Desmond will be isolated in the destroyed reality, acting as some sort of 'lock' to keep the SM inside of it.
Okay, that prediction was a little bit too detailed, and probably will not come true now that I've put that much thought into it. But for a more realistic prediction, can we all agree that SM will not get off the island and will be thwarted by the candidates? Or is that too vauge?
Final prediction of today: SM destroys Whitmore's entire team, but Whitmore (probably in death for drah-mah) scoffs and says something like 'it doesn't matter, everything is going as planned' reffering to the fact that he knows he will revert back to the alternate reality if Desmond succeeds. Oh, and probably in someone's final breath (glasses lady? i don't remember her name) they destroy both the sub and the plane.
Whelp! That's all I have for now. I'll see soon enough how much is just a bunch of crap!
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