Apparently my previous post was a bit more final than I was actually expecting it to be. I was hoping for some people to critique me on my perspectives regarding Batman, Star Wars, and Superman, but alas, all was for naught. I apologize. And let the record show that just because I say you’re wrong doesn’t mean that I’m right. In fact, even if I say that I’m right it doesn’t mean that I am. Or does it… No. It doesn’t.

I’m still interested in what people think about the prior posting. Especially Alex and Sheree. No offense intended to everyone else, but I think I can sort of imagine what everyone else was thinking. For example, my enemy Ryan would have been all “Duh, lawyer lawyer lawyer original trilogy lawyer gold. Lawyer lawyer prequels lawyer [expletive deleted]. Lawyer you Neal!” Admit it. I’m dead on and you know it. That is so how Ryan is.

Okay, that’s not how Ryan is. But it could be if he tried and I don’t think it would be a fruitless goal to achieve.

I just wanted to clear the air of that. I was sitting here at my computer with Midnight on my lap (she’s like a little space heater that keeps me legs warm since I haven’t turned on my heater yet) and I thought to myself “I should write a post right now about music.” That’s really why you’re reading this.

It’s funny how my head works (in that I don’t think it’s really working but rather sitting on a couch throwing objects at the control panel which is my brain). It turns out I have a bit of an addicitive personality. [Funny side note here. When I first heard the term "addictive personality" I had assumed it meant that others would be addicted to my personality. How wrong I was. So the person I was talking to and had just talked about the very traits that define addictive personality and mentioned that I had it must have wondered what was wrong with me when paused a moment, denied it, and mumbled something about people trying to get away from me more often than trying to get near me. I think that's quite funny from his perspective.]

But I do have an addictive personality. I find something I like, latch onto it like a parasite, drain it of all useful resources, and then move on. Thus my life (or at least my free time habits) tend to operate in cycles lasting anywhere from a couple days to months. The most annoying aspect of this cyclical system is that I do enjoy the things I spend my time on, I just find something I like more at that moment. So when something comes up in the cycle again I tend to fall madly in love with it and appreciate it all over again.

Case in point right now: music. Oh music. I really do enjoy it. I think one of the best random classes I have ever taken was the music class I took my first semester of college. It opened my mind to so much more than I had previously thought and was forced to look at the medium as a whole in a new light. Or should that be sound? Whatever. It was a ton of fun to go to concerts in Salt Lake (it was one of these concerts that was mentioned in a prior post where I was walking around the U by myself) that were focusing on a specific style of music that I otherwise wouldn’t have cared to listen to. I also learned that music in the C# major is just really appealing to me. I was listening to a piece and kept thinking “Yes! This is it! THIS is music!”

I’m listening to Keane while writing this. Keane is one of the few bands today that when I listen to gives me hope for what music might become. Not that everyone should make music like Keane, but how they came out of nowhere for me with this style that I absolutely adore. Their first album reminds me so much of the fall. That’s when I got my first taste of it and there was a day that I drove up to spend with Wendee after she got married. I was driving through the avenues to pick her up from work and the trees were all yellow and orange and dropping their leaves everywhere. As I cruised down the street slowly under the overcast sky the music just hit me and that moment became one that I will never forget. Everything right then was as perfect as I thought it needed to be. Plus, we went to eat at Evergreen and the number seven makes every day a special one.

Muse is another of those bands that I can’t get enough of. It makes me happy to hear now and then from people that whenever they hear a Muse song they think of me. Good. That’s a music that I like being associated with. Other than just how melodic and harmonic each song is (at the same time), I really enjoy how busy their music is. It makes me think of symphonic music. There’s so much going on that you have to take a step back and absorb it all at once. Then when you become more familiar with it you can move in and start to pick up each of the individual nuances of the intrsuments and see just how this chord interacts with that beat. Wonderful!

One more band and I’ll be done. Modest Mouse. Perhaps it is the college attitude in me, but lately it’s like I’ve been having an affair with Modest Mouse (the music, not the band). The most recent album is especially fun. It appeals to me in the same way Muse does but in a overtly less refined way. But that’s just on the surface. Covertly the music intertwines from song to song and themes traverse the entire album. I’m not a big fan of poetry in music, but now and again I feel as if it has found its’ place and Modest Mouse is a good home for it. The lyrics are magnificent in their simplicity and application. “Our ideas held no water but we still used them like a dam.” Come on. That’s awesome. And the line is only made better by the rest of the song and album.

That’s it. For now. It took longer than expected to get it all out, but oh well. For those of you that stuck around I hope you enjoyed it. Until next time when I should be doing homework and stop to write a random thought.

It’s been a couple weeks and I figured I needed to take a break from studying and write a couple things that have been on my mind. To help illustrate my mind-set for this first point I will need to take you back to a simpler time. A time of innocence and love. I time of music and dance. A time when Alex and I were in Starmakers.

Yes my friends. It is time to recall one of the many hilarious moments from that era. This is not one of the times when Alex got me in trouble (there were several of those), but this is a time when Alex got himself in trouble with everyone else aside from me. You see, we were getting ready for some performances and these times always resulted in long practices on Saturdays. On this particular Saturday we were taking an extended break for lunch I think and I was sitting in the closet of one of the rooms while others were milling about and talking. You know. All the stuff that angsty teenagers do when not dancing.

While sitting in the semi-dark closet (for some reason there was a large opening (not the doorway) that a person could crawl through and somewhat lit the room) and minding my own business I hear Alex enter the main room and notice he’s saying something. After a couple sentences I realized he wasn’t just talking like normal, it was old english. Another couple sentences and I realized that he was reading Romeo and Juliet. I found this somewhat odd but didn’t think much of it. I assume that others felt the same and just went back to what they were doing. The only problem for them was that Alex didn’t stop. He kept reading, aloud, making sure that everyone could hear.

After some time people began asking him to stop. But he kept going. More people asked him to stop. He just kept on trucking. The asking turned into insisting and at louder volumes until they were yelling for him to stop or leave. I believe I was the sole person that was not moaning to another or shouting at Alex. Within my compartment of a room I sat and laughed at the situation and wondered what would possess an individual to force upon others the old english story of teenaged love and hardship. I enjoyed every minute of Alex’s reading of Romeo and Juliet (he did read for each role and even slightly acted out some of the sequences).

It wasn’t until today that I believe I understood fully what inspired Alex’s young mind to perform such a task. In one of my classes we are supposed to read a play written many seasons ago called Cato: A Tragedy. For those unaware of this play it played a major role in the life of George Washington and heavily influenced the way he thought of many things such as virtue. While reading it to myself today I was overcome with an urge to stand read aloud the dialogue for anyone nearby regardless if they wanted to hear it or not. Luckily for them and unluckily for me, I was alone in my apartment. But be ye warned all who choose to spend time near me. I actually really enjoy this play and should you find yourself in proximity to me while I have in my possession this book, you will no doubt receive a regaling of last hours of Cato’s life.

My second point I wanted to make is much less comical but somewhat more interesting to me. It is regarding my diet, meaning the foods I subsist upon. Now that I am a single apartment dweller I need to purchase all of the food that enters my home (well, I do get some leftovers and free veggies from my mom and other people). This just so happens to force me to actually choose everything that I’m going to eat. While shopping for groceries I say in my head or possibly aloud “I have total choice over what I eat right now.”

Due to some ideas that ran through my head about a year ago from an ethics course and from reading a book about the overall state of America’s health problems I decided that I was going to cut red meat out of my diet, among other things, but red meat was the big change. After making that decision it was interesting to see how I would react to things. “Oh, can’t eat that anymore” then I’d get sad and pick something else. Sometimes I would forget, and sometimes I wouldn’t care. It’s not like I’m allergic or anything so it’s okay if I slipped now and then. But after a year now of changing this habit it’s even more interesting to me to see how I look at things.

I used to love steak. I mean LOVE steak. Hamburgers too. All that stuff. I did get cravings where a little man in my head would say “Neal, get me some meat. Now!” And I would obey. But that little man must have moved away or maybe even died because I don’t get those cravings any longer. More so, I don’t even desire in any way a steak or red meat. I don’t second guess in any small degree or think something like “but I’ll bet it’d taste really good.” I just don’t care for it anymore.

Another conscious change is also taking a similar path. That is a stark drop in the amount of sugar I eat. Or at least, processed sugars like in candy and such (I don’t have some magical device to tell me how much sugar I get from everything I eat). I don’t really eat a whole lot of candy or candy related goods anymore, and nowhere near what I once did. Sure, I’ll eat ice cream now and then or a cookie, but as the amount of sugars seems to lower, so does my desire to eat that too. It could be that with this focus on eating more healthy that I’m getting enough sugar from the increased amounts of fruit I’m eating so my body is content with that.

I also just feel better too. This is likely a combination of the above as well as the amount of time I spend on my bike and walking around campus (some of my classes are at opposite corners from each other and I even park at one of the furthest parking lots just because it’s easy to find a spot and not hassle with everyone else). I also notice a considerable change in both my energy level and digestion when I do eat really greasy foods that would be similar to a hamburger. That is, they both go down. This is all just a very fascinating thing to observe for me and thought it might be interesting for some of my fans out there as well.