HAPPY EARTH DAY!!!

:D

Presumably as a celebration of Earth Day, a certain Texas grocery store chain is forcibly giving away GTC Compact Fluorescent Bulbs.

Forcibly. I kid you not.

This is my last day off, and tomorrow is Brian's only day off this week, so I decide to splurge and grab some beer. I go to my favorite near-by grocery store (had I know it's Earth day I might have walked instead of driven the block-and-a-half to the store, so my bad there).

I grab the beer, head toward the 10 Items Or Less lane, and there's this store employee standing by the opening to the isle, sort of eying me. I mean, I'm a little scuzzed-out -- as I'm wont to be when I'm lazing around the apartment with no commitments -- but I don't look suspicious! And anyway, this guy isn't really looking at me suspiciously... But he is eying me, for sure.

I get to the front of the isle, smile at the store employee who has been visually tracking me, then just before I can enter the isle he snatches up a small, light-green box and places it in my hand. He didn't proffer it to me, he didn't have me take it, he placed it right in my hand. "This is free, just ask the cashier for the coupon."

If this happened to you at an airport you'd be yelling for the nearest undercover Homeland Security agent.

In fact, this probably couldn't happen at an airport.

The moment I'm in the isle, the cashier is greeting me with a loud, friendly "hi". I set the beer on the counter and hold up the small green box, telling her I'm supposed to ask her for a coupon. She energetically responds that she knows exactly what I'm talking about and she's in motion, scanning my beer, swiping a coupon, and advising me that "people" need to be sure to read the box because the light bulb contains mercury and can't simply be thrown away in the garbage when it's done. (She didn't say that I need to read the box, she said that "people" need to read the box.)

I jokingly (perhaps wryly; I've been told that I can be wry) asked if that's why they were giving the bulbs away: to get rid of them.

But the cashier lady earnestly and energetically told me that these are good for the environment... Unless they're not properly disposed of, of course. but then she quickly adds that "people" simply have to be responsible.

I am, naturally, thinking 2 things: I did not actively choose to purchase this bulb, it was forced into my hand and I am not being charged for it; and wouldn't the more "responsible" course of action be to not put an ecologically hazardous material in a light bulb? I mean, we don't use plutonium in disposable lighters, right?

Now, if I really wanted to be personally responsible, I wouldn't have accepted the bulb -- free or not. But this experience is simply too surreal for me to let it end there... I want to read the box now! :D

So I get home and relate the story to Brian (who is still waking up, poor guy, and getting into his Going To Work head space) and make a few of my jokes, then I sit down and read the box.

The front of the box proclaims that this bulb "Lasts 9 Years*" and I, apparently, will "Save $47 in energy costs **".

Now, if you've read enough advertising, you know that "*" and especially "**" are never good things! These are the marks that are supposed to lead you to search the bottom of the box for the really, really tiny print. And more often than not, the tiny print effectively reverses the miracle claim that preceded it.

An example:

THIS CHOCOLATE CUPCAKE HAS NO CALORIES*



*Unless consumed.


So, you quickly learn to distrust any statement followed by an asterisk.

In order for the bulb to last 9 years, you have to use it only 3 hours a day, residential use.

Okay, so I'm not a scientist, but if I used a regular, non-toxic bulb in my home 3 hours a day, wouldn't that extend the bulb's life? Like, significantly? I mean, don't regular bulbs used in residences usually go out (after several years, in my experience) simply because they remain on for so long? I'd like to see the results of a study that compares exactly how much more efficient these new toxi-bulbs are compared to the old-school, tried-and-true bulbs.

The double-asterisk qualification (the one about saving $47) is "Savings based on 10 cents per kilowatt hour compared to a 60-Watt GTC™ incandescent bulb."

So how do I know that GTC™ is an efficient bulb to begin with? There is no information provided as to how GTC™ bulbs compare to, say General Electric bulbs? If GTC™ is an energy-whore, then you might actually save money with an old-school non-Earth-killing bulb of another brand!

In fact, Google "GTC lamp" right now. When I did it, I found a lot of links about expensive cars. Not one link to a lighting company! (Not even a link to a news story about how GTC™ is saving the planet by giving away their bulbs on Earth Day.) Same with "GTC bulb", except for some company based in Poland, apparently. (Maybe it's because I didn't put the "™" in there.)

So why is this company giving its product away? Is it because they're trying to create brand recognition for a brand no one has ever heard of, maybe?

Anyway, back to the box...

Okay, so the back of the box lists:

GREEN REASONS
to Use Compact Fluorescent Lights (CFLs)

• Energy Efficient
• Cost Effective
• Versatile

Well, there's THREE great reasons, right there, right? No reason not to use this product!

Except...

The bulb is cost effective because it's energy efficient, right? I mean, you save that AMAZING $47 because it lasts 9 years (if you only use it 3 hours a day). So those 2 claims are really only a single claim. (And I would seriously like to see, for myself, the data that proves exactly how efficient this bulb really is.)

And as for the supposed versatility of the product...

The side of the box starts off with:

"CAUTION: DO NOT USE WITH DIMMER. FOR USE ONLY IN 120V/60HZ CIRCUITS. DO NOT EXPOSE TO MOISTURE OR WATER. DO NOT OPEN. NO USER-SERVICEABLE PARTS INSIDE. TO INSTALL, HANDLE BULB BY GRASPING BASE, DO NOT GRASP GLASS PORTION. THIS DEVICE IS NOT INTENDED FOR USE WITH EMERGENCY EXIT FIXTURES OR EMERGENCY EXIT LIGHTS, PHOTOCELLS AND ELECTRONIC TIMERS. AN ENCLOSED FIXTURE IS REQUIRED FOR OUTDOOR USE. MINIMUM OPERATING TEMPERATURE IS -15°C (5°F)."

That seems like a lot of "Don't"s for a supposedly "versatile" bulb.

I mean, I may very well be naive here, but we can't use the bulb with a dimmer? We can't use it with a timer -- as in, I have a nice home, I'm going away for a week, and I want a timer to trick potential burglars into thinking I'm still at home? And haven't I seen old-fashioned non-groundwater-poisoning light bulbs in outdoor sockets without an enclosed fixture? (I mean, to be fair, I'm sure it's not recommended. But they got the job done. And if they broke, you simply swept up the mess; you didn't have to call Hazmat and have your front porch quarantined.)

But that's not even what grabbed my attention!

"THIS DEVICE COMPLIES WITH PART 18 OF FCC RULES, BUT MAY CAUSE INTERFERENCE TO RADIOS, TVS, WIRELESS PHONES AND REMOTE CONTROL. IF INTERFERENCE OCCURS, MOVE BULB AWAY FROM AFFECTED DEVICE, OR PLUG DEVICE INTO ANOTHER OUTLET."

WTF?!!

Are you kidding me?!!

I don't know about where you live, but my apartment has dedicated sockets for bulbs. They're in the ceiling, and if you want light you plug the bulb in there. AND... There aren't many of them! It's not like electrical plugs in the wall, where they're just about everywhere and you just track down the one you want to plug into. There are 4 light sockets in this little pad, and if I want illumination I'm plugging into one of them. I can't move the bulb, and I don't have many options about where to move the bulb to.

So... um... "versatile"? I'm ignoring, here, that for my 38 years of life light bulbs haven't interfered with radio transmission, I'm just focusing on the claim of versatility.

Did you ever see that joke commercial for Happy Fun Ball on an episode of Saturday Night Live in the '80s? "Ingredients of Happy Fun Ball include an unknown glowing substance which fell to Earth, presumably from outer space." "Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball."

But wait... What about the methods of disposal for this aberration against God and man? Didn't the frenetically helpful cashier warn me that "people" must be "responsible" when disposing of this product?

It took me a while, but I finally stumbled onto a teeny-tiny box with really, really small print that says the following:

"These bulbs contain mercury. Manage in accordance with disposal laws. See www.lamprecycle.org for more information."

Please feel free to follow the hyperlink, and you tell me how to dispose of this damned thing, lol! ;P (The hyperlink is a courtesy... At first I accidentally typed in www.lamprecycle.com and it led me to many, many pages of site where I was invited to either buy a subscription to some sort of recycling service, purchase a recycling device, or start my own recycling program! For a fee...)

Bottom Line: I am frightened of this GTC™ Compact Fluorescent Bulb, and I will be putting it in the farthest corner of the highest shelf of the most remote closet in this apartment that I can find, where it will sit until well after Brian & I move out of this place!

I just hope the next owners of this apartment have greater mental and spiritual strength and courage than I do. When confronted with the foe known as GTC™ Compact Fluorescent Bulb, I heed the sage advice of King Arthur (as played by Graham Chapman in Monty Python and the Holy Grail):

"Run away! Run away!"

That bitch isn't coming out of its box! Not while I own it!

Pseudo-Science Theory #1

As I've mentioned before, I'm reading this amazing book called PSIience: How New Discoveries in Quantum Physics and New Science May Explain the Existence of Paranormal Phenomena by Marie D. Jones.

And I've come up with a theory:

Thoughts are not produced by the brain -- as we were taught in school -- but actually originate from the mind, which may itself be a part of or product of what we often call the soul.

Now, if you're not a student of, or interested in, paranormal matters, this will probably sound like bunk to you (which is why I use the term "pseudo-science" in the title). And I'm not an academic, this is not a science blog, so I won't bother to site my sources. (If the theory intrigues you and this is the first time you've encountered such an idea, there are a lot smarter people out there who can guide you far better than I can. I'm just throwing out a concept for anyone who's interested.)

I arrived at this theory (I don't know if it's a proper theory, but I'm calling it that, anyway) due to a number of different observations an studies...

First, a few years back a podcast called Mysterious Universe (now defunct, but I think I've got several of the podcasts backed-up on disc somewhere) did a story about a study of reports of transplant organ recipients taking on the personalities of the deceased organ donors. The article (is that what you would call a spoken essay?) mentions how Eastern belief systems beleive that we have a life force which runs throughout us, called chi, and ponders whether or not chi might contain personality traits as much as the brain would. The precident is the scientific discovery that every single cell in our body contains in its DNA all the genetic information necessary to create any living being. Every piece of DNA contains all that information!

Then I remember wondering, while reading about the nature of auras, whether or not auras could be our soul. Maybe this energy that surrounds our body, which some people claim to be able to see, is actually us -- the eternal us, the us that leaves the body when it dies.

(Oh, yeah, for my theory to be correct, we have to assume that we have a soul and don't just decay into compost when our bodies pass away. If you can't get behind that idea, there's no use reading any further, lol. This entry isn't for you.)

I may have even read someone who said that our auras are our souls. I don't recall.

But the aura being the soul, that seems possible to me, based on experiential evidence: Have you ever met someone who just seems to "fill up" the room? Or "made a connection" with someone attractive at the oposite side of the room at a party or something? Or, conversely, have you ever met someone who seems buried deep inside themself? Or have you ever felt somehow "bigger" or "smaller" at times?

I'm explaining this poorly, but I'll bet you can understand the phenomena I'm talking about: It's a sense of you being at times as huge as a house or as small as an aching tooth. Your awarness of the world around you can span the unseen universe, or can collapse into an unscratchable itch on a centimeter of your skin.

If you practice martial arts, you know how to focus and expand your chi to attack or block an oponent, or to contract your chi to avoid an attack.

So what if the thing we're "expanding" or "contracting" -- or which is expanding or contracting involuntarily according to our emotional and/or mental state -- is us? Me? You? The "I" that you mean when you say or think "I am..."?

Moreover, mainstream science assumes that all the electrochemical stuff going on inside our brains is a product of that brain.

But what if it's not?

We often hear how we only use, like, 12% of our brains, or something like that. And New Age thinkers have speculated that if we were capable of using a larger percentage of our brain we could probably accomplish the types of feats that Eastern Yogis, or Jesus of Nazareth accomplished.

But what if that's not necessary? What if the paradigm itself is wrong?

I propose that we -- what Eckhart Tolle calles the "I Am," the little voice that asks the question when we think "What am I?" -- are not our bodies, and our thoughts aren't the products of our brains.

I think that when we use our brains, we are using our brain! The same was we use our liver or our hands. I don't think our brain thinks thoughts; I believe our soul or spirit or whatever -- that energetic form that lives on beyon its use for the body -- thinks the thoughts, and it merely uses the brain! :D

It seems to clear! I had this revelation toward the end of my shift at work. I was reading some of Jones' book -- she's still in a sort of introductory stage, where she's outlining the different types of paranormal phenomena that is reported and studied for people who aren't as nerdy as I am about the paranormal and haven't grown up reading books about these True Accounts Of The Unexplained An Mysterious! (these books often had exclamation points in the titles) -- and she mentions studies in human consciousness that she'll be describing later in the book, and then all these different concepts -- chi, auras, the energetic entity that lives on after physical death, the soul -- all coalesced into a single concept: Thought doesn't originate in the brain!

I think a possibly more accurate paradigm might be that thoughts pass through our brains, rather than originating there.

Which totally shifts the way we think about soul and the spirit!!! :D

Scientists and skeptics don't believe we can live on after death because our thoughts are created by our brain. When the brain dies, thought ceases.

Which trips them up when they study (scientists, not the skeptics, lol) Near Death Experiences, because how can a brain that has stopped functioning -- e.i. ceased producing electrical impulses that, mainstream science currently believes, is thought?

In fact, all psychic phenomena is a mystery when viewed from this perspective! How can a brain send it's electrical impulses outside the body to move a physical object, or read someone else's electrical impulses, or go halfway around the world a "remote view" an enemy's military movements?!

The answer, as mainstream science has come already come up with, is that it can't.

BUT...

If we -- the I Ams -- aren't a biproduct of our brain and, instead, are mealy utilizing that particular organ, then we might be able to do these things! :D

Think about the failed explorations in the past of the brain... Scientists in the early 1900s were sure they would be able to open up someone's head and poke around and figure out what makes what do what. But those experiements resulted in a sort of vague, general undertsanding that this sort of section over here seams to sort of control these types of functions, and then this section over here kind of seems to control these basic types of functions, and so on.

I think that's why chemical "fixes" for mental disorders never 100% work. they kind of help... but...

Because (in my theory) emotional disorders, thought-based disorders, personality problems in general, are all me disorders. They're not the byproduct of a brain whose electrochemical activities are malfunctioning, but of a spirit -- an amorphous blob of energy that is experiencing physical life through a physical vehicle -- that is somehow not "getting it" (whatever the hell "it" is, lol).

Not to be pro or con on medications that affect the brain. I don't know dick about biochemistry or pharmaceutical chemestry. I'm a decent armchair psychologists, but I am by no means a psychiatrist.

My point is just this: How many long-standing questions might we finally answer if we looked at the mind (our thoughts and/or the entity thinking those thoughts) as a completely seperate being from the brain (an organ that sits in our head and lights up on an EEG when you show us pictures of different things)?

Now, I jokingly refer to this theory as pseudo-science because it relies heavily upon basic concepts that Science won't tough with a 10-foot pole. First we have to convince them that we have souls, then we have to convince them that all the organ recipeints who have unknowingly taken on the character traits of the organ donors aren't suffering from "mass hysteria" or "delisuion", then we have to convince them that auras might exist... Yikes! I'm exhausted just thinking about it!

But if, say, some folks were already open to the possibilities of these phenomena, this theory of mine might answer some personal questions for them... ;)

OR...

I've just (hopefully amusingly) helped you kill a half-hour with some ramblings that might have got your own gray cells firing.

...if, indeed, that's how it all works.

;)

Cann't Wait For May!!!

Have you seen the trailer for Angels & Demons yet? Looks AWESOME!!!

Inspired, I finally read the book and loved it! :D

I think if Ron Howard and everyone involved in adapting this flick do as good a job as they did with the fist flick, this movie should RULE!!! :D

What else...?

I finally got PSIence!!! I have been trying to track this thing down for a month or so now! At first, I tried hitting all the local book stores when I had money, because I wanted to get it into my sweaty little hands immediately. But they were always sold out about it. "We can order it for you, though." But I wanted it now.

But then I finally broke down and looked the book up on Amazon.com... to discover it's out of stock THERE, too!

HOWEVER...

There are some individual sellers that still have copies of it! Even some new copies!

And my copy arrived yesterday!!! :D I see why this copy was still in stock, too: It's a bit mangled.

Which is fine by me. I'm not trying to impress anyone with my pristine copy of Marie D. Jones' PSIence, and I certainly don't intend to resell my copy. I just want the knowledge that the book contains.

The full title of the book is PSIence: How New Discoveries in Quantum Physics and New Science May Explain the Existence of Paranormal Phenomena. Since the '90s, when I started hearing/reading about some of the stuff Quantum Physics was discovering, I have been proposing that Quantum Physics was going to turn out to be the link between physics and metaphysics. And this book seems to be backing my theory up! :)

We'll see. So far I've only had the time to read the Preface and the Introduction, lol.

For all I know, this book won't tell me anything I haven't already heard/read. But still, I'm inspired that someone took the time to put all these things together in a single volume!

You can hear a great interview with Marie D. Jones on the Paranormal Podcast! The interview is here. This is the first time I heard about the book, and I was curious then, but once I got into TSPI it seemed like I really should read it. I want to know all the most believeable theories about how and why paranormal stuff happens. First, so I answer questions when people have them, and secondly so I might more effectively track these pehnomena down and (hopefully) document it!

But now I have 4 books that I'm reading simultaneously! (I took a break for Angels & Demons and devoted my attention fully to that.)

Also, if you're on Facebook and someone invites you to Pirates: Rule the Caribbean or Mafia Wars, DON'T JOIN!!! OMG, for the love of all that's holy, DO NOT JOIN!!! Those frickin' games are SO ADDICTIVE!!! I am ashamed of my lack of will power now that I've been exposed to these games.

I don't even like anything mafia or gang related! That's how addictive these games are! The pirates makes sense: I love just about all things pirate-y. But I don't even watch mafia-related movies, so the fact that I'm addicted to this game is just not right, lol.

OOH! Also, I've been watching some MST3K on my iPod!!! :D I found the 2 Godzilla flicks they riffed on, and also the 2 Gamera flicks! I love these old monster movies -- despite their obvious flaws (or maybe because of them) -- but they are undeniably more fun when you're listening to smart people make jokes about them! :)

Oh! And have you been watching Dollhouse?!! DUDE!!!

Joss Whedon RULES!!! :D

You know who else rules?

MY GNOMEY-GODDESS!!! xoxoxo :D Reading every email she sends me is like opening up a package filled love and warmth and goodnessand joy!!! :D What a woman! :D

Mmmm....

Pardon me... I got lost in daydreams for a moment...

Okay, time to sign off for now.

Hope your day is filled with laughter and friends!!!

Elipse: A Piano "Tribute"...

Have you heard Eclipse: A Piano Tribute to Evanescence? I can't say I recommend it. :(

By the way, I know I just posted an entry, but I guess I'm feeling chatty this morning.

So I recently got in this Evanescence mood (not an unusual occurrence, despite the fact that after a PERFECT first album I wasn't that impressed with their follow-up effort) and I was offered a copy of Eclipse to listen to. I loaded it onto my iPod, and finally got around to listening to it on my way home from work just now.

I was disappointed.

Now, I'm not and Artsy type. I didn't grow up in an academic setting reading ancient tomes for fun and extolling the genius of Mozart. (Amadeus was an over-rated hack, as far as I can tell. I have yet to hear a single piece that moves me. I suspect he composed with his brain, not his spirit. Please feel free to leave all the hatemail you like in my Comments section. I'll post every one of them.) I grew up listening to the radio and watching TV and reading comic books -- like more of you my age than would probably care to admit -- but I'm not merely a spectator. I've acted (community theatre) since I was 11 years old, studied filmmaking since I was 15 or 16, made short "films" (video) since I was 17, edited audio and video since I was 20, (seriously) studied writing (screenplay, novel, short stories) since I was 21, and so I appreciate the craft that goes into creation just as much as I appreciate the creation itself. I honestly get it when a filmmaker loves a movie because of what went into the making of it, despite how the flick might look to a viewer, and when a band digs a particular song because of the process of recording it, despite what their fans may think of the finished product.

From this perspective, I can only perceive Eclipse: A Piano Tribute to Evanescence as hack.

Perhaps well-intentioned hack. I don't mean to disparage the spirit in which the album may have been recorded at all! I don't know. I don't know any of the artists that contributed or how much they may love and be inspired by Evanescence.

But the product sounds like pretension.

From the very first track, the songs' tempos stagger like the player is just creating the song, off the top of his/her head, right there and then, as he/she plays it.

What the hell is THAT?!!

I mean, I've heard it before. It's the exact type of thing every self-proclaimed "diva" does to the songs they cover from Maria Carey to the current flavor. They can't bring their own creativity to a song, so they just distort the note, stagger the tempo and hit every note their vocal range can manage in as quick a succession as humanly possible. They may feel cool doing it, but it's a headache-inducing mess for the poor listener.

I'm not saying Eclipse is this bad, mind you. It's really not. Compared to what Christina Aguilera can do to a song she's covering, Eclipse is downright respectful of its source material, lol.

But not enough so, is my argument.

I say this because I've heard artists simply cover a song -- without needless embellishment -- and make that song their own.

Ugly Kid Joe covered Hary Chapin's "Cats in the Cradle" to powerful effect, and they didn't change a note! They simply played this mournful Folk song the way they play one of their songs, and the result is powerful! (I'm a rock dude, so if I had to choose, I'd go with Ugly Kid Joe's version. But if Chapin's version is playing, I'm still gonna listen beginning to end because it's a great song!)

Alanis Morissette covered Seal's "Crazy" and blew my socks off! I grew up LOVING Seal's original version!!! I love Seal! The man's music -- not to even mention his angelic voice -- is friggin' BRILLIANT!!! And Alanis didn't do much different at all! I mean, she probably used almost completely different instruments than he did, and her arrangement accommodated the instruments she was using. But that's it. It's Seal's song sung by Morissette. AND IT ROCKS!!! I have both Seal's self-titled debut album and Morissette's Alanis Morissette: The Collection because I loved her version of it SO MUCH! Ask me to choose and I can't. Both versions are dead-brilliant in their own ways.

One more example: Have you heard Disturbed's cover of Genisis' "Land of Confusion"? This dates me, but when I was 16 that song was the rockin'-est song I had ever heard!!! :D I'm not exaggerating, that song blew me away! I could barely contain myself whenever that song came on the radio or MTV! And Genisis is still a viable band, I believe. I mean that a lot of their music could be played over the airwaves today, as though they were a new up-and-coming band, and my daughter might think they were cool. (And my daughter has great taste in music! She's introduced me to many, many amazing bands, such as Panic! At The Disco. This chick knows her music!) (Also, just a note: I think much of the synthesizer stuff would give away the age of the songs, but other than that, great, well-produced music!)

And yet, Disturbed covered it to astounding effect!!! :D

Like in the above illustrations, all they did was do what they do while performing that song, and IT ROCKS!!! They were extremely true to the original material, and yet they managed to own it! In fact, I would argue that what Disturbed did with the song was to infuse it with the exact same degree of intensity that it had back in the late-80s, so that a younger generation -- like my daughter's generation, for instance -- could experience the song the same way my generation did. (Side Note: It's a little creepy, isn't it, how the lyrics of the song seem so much more relevant today than they did back when the song was originally released 23 years ago?)

So it is my argument that if you don't think you necessarily have something to bring to a song -- or album -- just bring yourself and make it your own, and that is more than enough! Had the artists involved with Eclipse simply played the songs from Fallen as Amy Lee and Ben Moody et al. had written them, those artists involved would have been hailed ans geniuses, because the songs are solid! (Particularly these songs, as they had evolved during the course of Evanescence's musical career. You can hear versions of many of the songs on earlier, limited-release albums available from the band before Fallen's release. Great then, better still on Fallen.)

Instead, it seems, the artists involved with Eclipse chose to randomly decelerate and accelerate the pace of songs, deemphasize key sections (which were, obviously, originally emphasized for their emotional impact on the listener) and just generally muck the original material up ever so slightly, so that (one can only speculate) the player or arranger can say "You hear that? That's me. I changed it to sound like that." (The only logical response to which, I imagine, is the girl the guy was trying to impress suddenly remembers she has a dental appointment and has to leave right now. Because you just know it's someone with a penis that mucked this album up.)

Ignoring my above demonstrations of how to cover a song the most effectively, I point to the Vitamin String Quartet -- otherwise known as The String Quartet, as in The String Quartet's Tribute to... -- as the most amazing example of how to cover someone else's music!!! I was first turned onto these cats in the late-90s when I was in a Barnes & Noble browsing their DVDs. (This is before I became intimately involved with Amazon.com, from which I can now purchase the British versions of Simon Pegg/Edgar Wright movies and such! I was paying an arm and a leg for this stuff, and now Amazon often gives me a discount! :D ) I heard this string version of Tori Amos' "Precious Things" that obsessed me! I was forced -- was forced -- to ask one of the B&N employees what was playing and how can I buy it! It was, of course, The String Quartet Tribute to Tori Amos: Precious Things. I bought it on the spot, took it home, and was in heaven for month afterward! (I kid you not! If you haven't heard it, click on the link and sample "Precious Things" and you'll know what so obsessed me!)

Then, after I discovered 3 Doors Down and bought everything they had out at the time (I know, you probably had their albums a year before I did; I'm sometimes slow on the up-take) I happened upon The String Quartet tribute to 3 Doors Down and I snatched that sucka up!!!

Okay, I have to say this: I have heard string music that moved me deeply, profoundly, even. But this was the first time I ever heard string music that rocks!!! :D Holey shnikies! These cats blew me away the same way that 3 Doors Down did... only different, lol.

I mean, if your intent is to add a sense of "class" (an elitist term, if ever I heard one) to the "uncouth" popular forum of Rock music, go the Vitamin String Quartet way! You can play it in the background as all your uppity Socialite friends arrive for your dinner party, and they will be moved by the music! The instruments are socially acceptable for those who consider themselves intellectually superior to the rest of us, but the power of the music is still intact! The Vitamin String Quartet gets what the music is and what it's trying to accomplish, and how to translate that to "more refined" instruments!!! You can hear sometimes major re-working of the arrangement, but it all serves the purpose of preserving the original appeal of the source material. (In most cases, it preserves the original balls of the source material, as well!)

The only people you're going to impress playing Eclipse: A Piano Tribute to Evanescence as your dinner guests arrive are the children of your guests, who are just thankful to hear even a muzak version of something they sort/kinda recognize as music.

But that's assuming you intention in buying Eclipse is to impress others. But you know what? Researching the links for this blog entry, I discovered that The (Vitamin) String Quartet did a tribute to Evanescence! :D I'll bet if you follow the links and just listen to the samples provided, you'll totally hear what I've been going on about for the duration of this blog entry! :) (I wonder if they ever did Yellowcard!!!)

The Vitamin String Quartet RULES!!! lol ;)

This PIRATES Thang...

I've got 34 seconds until I have one more energy point and am able to execute one more plunder mission. Then I'll have to wait for a long time to build my energy back up.

One second...

WOO-HOO! I made $76,469 worth of gold on that last plunder!!! :D

Now I have to bury it before someone attacks me. Be right back...

Cool.

I now have $510,486 of gold buried, and it'll be quite a while before I have enough energy to do anything. So I can explain about my addiction to this friggin' game, lol.

So Pirates: Rule the Caribbean!... It owns me.

I joined Facebook last Sunday night/Monday morning -- I finally bowed to peer pressure and decided to join, like, the 4th largest "nation" in the world. (That statistic is based on what my friend Lothar told me, not any actualy first-hand research.)

It's such a blur now, I don't even remember how I first discovered the pirate game. I think my friend was touting his beloved Mafia Wars game and maybe I had noticed that the same company that produced Mafia Wars had a pirate-based game, or something...

Anyway, before I know it, I'm signed up for Pirates and playing, and COMPLETELY ADDICTED!

My character is Peg-Eye McCootch (the game asks you to try to be more or less tasteful when creating your name, which naturally causes me to think of every creative inuendo I can imagine, lol) and I have a pet dolphin named Lungrin. (It's an '80s joke... you get it?)

As of this writing, I'm a Level 15 Swashbuckler (I jotted down some notes at the beginning of my shift because I knew I wanted to blog about the game, and at the time I made the notes I was a Level 13 Swashbuckler. THAT is how addictive this friggin' game is!) with an Attack Skill of 11, a defense Skill of 15, Maximum energy of 50, Maximum Health of 117, and Maximum Strength of 11. Every hour I make $33,480 off my 2 Treasure Stashes, 2 Ropemakers, 2 Docks and single Tree House, but I have an up-keep of -$12,805 because of my 2 Spanish Galleons, 3 Ducth Fleuts, 3 Merchant Carriers, 2 Sloops, Schooner and Row Boat. So all in all, I bring in $20,675 every hour... assuming another player doesn't attack me and win the battle. So whenever I think about it, I have this overwhelming desire -- wherever I am, whatever I'm doing -- to log into Facebook and bury whatever treasure I might have made in the past however-many hours.

It's an unreasonable fear, largely, because I often log in to find I've ammased hundreds of thousands of dollars of gold, which I promptly bury before doing anything else. I also often find notes informing me that I've battled and won or battled and lost to some other pirate (a real player, not a fictitious character created by the game) who got however-much as reward loot.

And the most insane part of this? It's a text-based game!!! Like in the early 1980s! I mean, there are images all over the page, but all the action takes place in the form of words! This is a step or two removed from playin D&D back when I was 12, sitting around a table with pencils and twelve-sided dice! (Except, you know, this lacks the human interraction, lol.) My addiction to SecondLife made more sense to me because it was a 3-D world. I'm addicted to words on a screen now! I've removed the human contact AND the cool graphics, lol!

I guess if you're reading this you probably know what I'm talking about, because you're probably addicted to Mafia Wars. (It seems everyone but me is.) So this might not seem so strange to you. But I'm a little freaked out, lol. I mean, these past few days, what gets me out of bed is the realization that I should bury my treasure before I get attacked.

I haven't dreamed the game yet, though. Maybe that's a possitive sign.

Although, pirate dreams wouldn't suck! It might be fun to be romp around the deck of a ship all night! :)

Speaking of which...

I've built up enough energy to plunder again. Wait here...

$80,286!!! Woo-hoo! :D

Dude, and I had to conquer 2 1/2 stages (13 levels) before I could score THIS MUCH from a mission. It used to be, like, $200. Which was aggrivating when I knew I was going to have to spend $400,000 to buy a ship. (And that's even before I discovered I'd have to buy MULTIPLE ships to complete some of the missions!)

Blah.

So, I'm a dork.

I need to go bury my treasure. And I m ight want to leave. I'm writing this from work and my shift was over 20 minutes ago, lol.

PEACE!!! :D