Are you the bereaved?

Ok, I totally stole this from a message board, but I thought it was a worthy topic. The question:

What Song/Album would you commit suicide to?

Yeah I know it's kind of a depressing topic but it was very interesting. There are many things to take into account. It's different from what is your favorite album because it being the last one you hear makes it special, it is also possible that you would want to say something with your last selection. Perhaps you might want something that would put you in the mood, so to speak. I cheated (because I can) so I have a couple of selections, both Rock and Classical.

I must say that I had a really hard time picking some of these, I guess I thought I listened to more depressing music than I really do.

Nine Inch Nails - The Fragile - both discs ending with the song "Ripe (with Decay)"

Pink Floyd - The Wall

And being cliche, but unable to make an argument against it...
Nine Inch Nails - The Downward Spiral

As for the ones that the rest of you don't know, I found these much more easy to pick. I debated about whether or not to include explanations with them, but I did. If any of you would like to experience the music first and later hear the explanation I'd advise you to skip the explanation. Enough stalling:

Tchaikovsky - Symphony No. 6 "Pathetique" - Tchaikovsky's last three Symphonies all deal with Fate and a person's reaction to Fate. In the 4th, there is a triumph over Fate. The 5th describes acceptance of Fate. His final 6th Symphony is a battle against Fate that you do not win. The result being that you can not escape and you are doomed to your fate

Mahler - Symphony No. 9 - Mahler became one of my favorite composers and this Symphony was the first piece I heard by him and it is still my favorite. This piece is interesting from a purely historical/technical standpoint but I'll leave that lesson for another day. If the 4th movement isn't enough to depress you, perhaps this fact will. While he was writing this Symphony his daughter died, if that wasn't enough, Mahler was diagnosed with a heart condition so he knew that he was going to die.

And finally, the piece I feel most justified in putting here, because if I was actually going to do it, this would be the one that would be playing...

Barber - Adagio for Strings - Simply...Hands down the most depressing and beautiful song I've ever heard.

Just a disclaimer, this was not written in contemplation of anything, this is not a cry for help, it is only a way of writing about music that I love. Now discuss, and please post your picks as well

And the Oscar Goes to...

Well I watched the Academy Awards tonight, so I thought I'd post my thoughts on it. Honestly, not my favorite year for movies, granted I haven't seen all of them, but I've seen a fair amount. I just think that what I did see was only "ok" or "good", maybe it was even more of a I-realize-why-some-people-would-like-them-but-I-personally-wasn't-blown-away-type movies. That being said I think I have to see Million Dollar Baby, although the end was spoiled by something I read in the most unexpected of places, but I digress.

As for the show itself, I was actually really impressed. The pacing was very quick but did not seem rushed and I think they gave due respect to all the winners. Even the people given awards in their seats was not distasteful at all. They cut off people who deserved to be cut off, you can't just go up there and ramble forever. Also, for my money Chris Rock did a really good job hosting. I did think that it was the wrong crowd for him though. His humor is a little to "street" for the conservatives in Hollywood, but overall a very good job. (I do not mean this in the political sense, just that Hollywood likes to think of itself very highly...I kinda want to say "stuck-up" but I don't want it to have a negative connotation...).

Anyway a good evening in my opinion and I came in 2nd in my Oscar pool so hooray for that.

Advertising

Well the last topic has dissolved into discussing robots, so it's time to move on.

The new Mitsubishi commercials are really pissing me off. If you haven't seen them here is a short description of both of them (these are not the official name but just the one I came up with).

Let's get it on: A couple walk into look at buying an SUV. Young Husband tries to convince Young Wife that they should buy it. He talks about the safety rating, the great deal they are going to get, but she is undecided. Husband looks over to the Mitsubishi guy who then does the international symbol for rocking the baby. Husband then shrugs and says "it's the perfect size for the family we've been talking about". Wife is convinced and hugs him, and he has a vague look of disappointment. She then adds "Look it seats five!" Husband stops in his tracks and the commercial ends.

The WingmanTwo guys are in the dealership. Dude#1 says here's the sporty Eclipse that I'm going to buy, Dude#2 responds "Nice, Chickmagnet!". Dude#1 responds that No, the car is really good and lists all sorts of great things. At each one Dude#2 responds "Chickmagnet!". The commercial ends with Dude#2 doing push-ups on a car, while the female sales person asks Dude#1 if "He is with you". The thing is that she doesn't ask in a completely disgusted manner, it appears to me that she is interested in the guy and is wondering if they are friends.

Right, so why do I bother describing all of these...Well it could be my Gender Discrimination class talking, but I find these commercials incredibly offensive, chalk full of all the gender stereotypes of our society. The first describes a situation where in order to get what he wants (the car) he cons his "wife" (I assume that they are married but I could be wrong) that he is ready to have a family. The problem is the suggestion that all men NEVER want to settle down and have to have a selfish motivation (getting a car) as the reason to settle down and have a family. The second one at least has a redeeming guy who wants a car and appears to be offended by the suggestion that he is only doing it to get chicks. The suggestion from the commercial is completely opposite since it could be argued that his friend 'articulates' the real reasons for getting his getting the car. And again the female seems interested in the friend making an ass of himself.

Wow this is getting long. I could say more about how advertising, rather than the Conservative right promoting the traditional values, is the real danger in our society being stuck in the terrible gender stereotypes and continue to construct our society's concept of gender.

Comments Redux

Blogger changed their comments again so I decided to try them again, since they are now allowing anyone to comment. After screwing with the HTML I finally got them to work. I have added the comments from the two previous posts into the new system. Let me know what you think of the new look. I think it will automatically show all coments, I can change it so that you would have to click on them in order to view them. Also, I can always bring back the old format if this doesn't work out.

EDIT: I've decided to have a link to the comments instead of displaying them on the main page. Why? Well, it looks better, but more importantly this is my blog and thus only my opinion should be on the page. Don't like it? Get your own!

In perfect isolation, here behind my wall...

Yes, I borrowed the line, it doesn't mean quite the same thing here but it does evoke a feeling that I've been thinking about recently. You see I've been listening to my iPod, pretty much exclusively since I got it. Thus, no radio, no CDs, nothing. Also I just got Digital Cable which has the OnDemand feature. Not quite as good as TiVo or DVR, but it's the same concept. Basically, this has left me only listening or watching exactly what I want to, without have to be exposed to anything outside of my own taste. Now some people would say that this is a good thing. Commercial radio is loathed, but tolerated by most people. Most Television is just utter crap, even (or especially) the shows we love to watch.

However, this also leads me to ask a question: Is this the end of popular culture?

If we are not exposed to anything besides things that we want to be, thus our entertainment is completely tailored for and by ourselves. The end result of this is that there will be no common experience among everyone. It used to be that everyone was exposed to the latest trend/fad/whatever since we were deluged with the sights and sounds of it all the time. Now we don't have to be. Some would say "thank God". But I wonder if (1) we will not be exposed to anything else, because the means of doing so are outside the little bubble we've created. But more importantly (2) we will loose a common experience that is the basis of our culture.

How was your day?

So I'm sitting in class not paying attention at all. Then I hear a loud noise, a *gasp* from some people, and the BOOM! Here read "BOOM" to refer to the covering of a floresent light falling from the celling and crashing down ON TOP OF MY HEAD! "Ow!" was the next thing I heard and that was coming from my mouth. So, I check to see if I'm bleeding and sure enough I am. I decide my time would be better spent if I wasn't in class. Got home found that it was just a couple of small cuts and a nice goose egg. I watched TV and iced my head. It was reported to me later that some more of the light decided to fall. A nice big metal piece of the frame fell into the seat that I had vacated not 5 minutes earlier.

On an obviously related note, my school has two brand new flat screen televisions to be used for "anoucements"...

Test

I'm attempting to change the comments at the bottom but I need to test it, please be patient.

EDIT: nevermind, nothing has changed. For those who care, I was trying to change the comments to be run by blogger itself rather than Haloscan. After much work I was finally able to get the HTML code correct, since it didn't do it automatically, but I found out that you would need a blogger account, instead of posting comments however you would like. I didn't like this and thus scraped everything and went back to the old way. So there's 30 seconds of your life, but feel better because it's about 30 minutes of my life I won't get back.