Spanish Leather? No, my boots are made of steel.

I am not enjoying the music that I’m listening to right now. “Why are you listening to it then Christian?” Well, let me explain. I am listening to the new CD by Rogue Wave. It just came out yesterday and when I saw that the band that had given me the songs Bird on a Wire, Lake Michigan, and Publish My Love had put out a new CD, I was mildly excited. See, those were songs that I had definitely listened to a lot of times back in the day, but they were also songs that I hadn’t had the desire to listen to in a really long time. When that happens, it usually means that my flavor has changed a little bit and that the band might not still fall into my realm of tastiness (if you will). But regardless, I was still mildly excited to hear what they had come up with.


I originally discovered Rogue Wave, not because I was looking for music but because I was sitting around bored and so I went on a Wikiadventure. If you’ve never been on a Wikiadventure, it’s where you go to Wikipedia and just click on random links on each page. You pick a number and then, every page you go to, you click the link that is corresponding (i.e. if you picked 7, you would click the 7th link that appeared on each page and you would do it 7 times). Then you read whatever page you are on at the end. I ended up on a page about Tsunamis I believe. They are also sometimes referred to as “Rogue Waves”. I thought it was a cool phrase so I clicked on it and then I saw the little note up at the top of the page that says something to the effect of “If you’re looking for Rogue Wave (band) click here.” So I clicked there and the rest is history.

Anyways, I am sitting here listening to this CD. I don’t like it. However, whenever I decide to evaluate a CD, especially if I’m going to share my opinion on the CD, I like to really listen all the way through it with an open mind. When I typed the first line of this post, I was about 45 seconds from the end of the CD and have since moved on to better music. However, I do feel that I gave the album an honest shot and have still come to the conclusion that it is not my flavor.

Here’s my pork (or “here’s my beef” if you’re more comfortable with that phrase) with this CD and really this band in general. They are entirely too repetitive. During a song, you hear not just the same LINE over and over again, but you hear it sung to the exact same melody and with the exact same music behind it. It jumps right over being boring and jumps to almost being annoying. And the thing is, repetition of lyrics is ok as long as you change up the melody…and repetition of melody is ok as long as you change up the words and the melody is awesome (Snow Patrol proves that in my opinion). However, Rogue Wave fails to create anything interesting to me and thus, I shall probably never listen to this CD again and will definitely delete it from my iPhone if not also from my computer. No thank you Rogue Wave.

I have moved on instead to a CD called Illuminare by a band called Umbrellas that I’m pretty sure is from Tulsa…I KNOW they’re from Oklahoma, but I could be wrong about the Tulsa part. Either way though, they’re from “round these parts” and that basically makes us family. I’m really diggin this CD though. The sweet thing about them is that, if I remember right, they recorded this CD in an old abandoned comedy club building and I think they recorded another CD in a “haunted” house place. I think it’s this band that I’m thinking of…I don’t know. Google it and call me out if I’m wrong. I don’t have the time to check my facts. But the sweet thing is that their music fits that so much. Their music is kind of dark and haunting a lot of the time. I especially remember having that feeling a couple of years ago when I saw them live in Tulsa. It felt like the kind of music that you should find as the soundtrack to either an epic battle between two vampires (you know what I’m talking about) or in a scene from some artsy fartsy movie when the main character is walking around slowly but everything around him or her is moving really fast. Like it’s all just flying by. And the sky is overcast at the beginning of the scene as it slowly turns to night by the end and he ends up sitting on a bench somewhere, all alone with his thoughts in the silence left after the song has ended. You know what kind of scene I’m talking about? You’ve definitely seen this type of scene in movies before. Anyways, that’s the vibe I get from these songs. So I think it’s kinda cool that they were recorded in such empty, haunting places because it’s almost like that vibe has been infused into their music. I dig it. It’s WAY better than that Rogue Wave CD. I don’t think it’s really one of those albums where you fall in love with any specific songs though. I think it’s more the kind of CD where, if you have to work 8 hours a day and you can listen to music, you turn it on and let it play through for an hour and appreciate the fresh vibe that it puts off. However, if you’re going to sample it and see whether you dig it, their best song is probably either Boston White or Ships. Check out Boston White.

Ok so here’s an issue that I have. I was reminded of how much this confuses me today as I was going into the Walmart at 81st and Lewis today during my lunch. I was going in there to buy some steel-toed boots. I got these ones:

The brand of these boots is Brahma which, if I’m not mistaken, is the name of one of the three major gods in Hinduism. I’m about 65% sure that he’s the god of creation? I might be wrong there but I think that’s right. Either way, if that really is the name of a hindu god and it really is the god of creation, than I feel pretty good knowing that these boots come straight from the master creator himself. Sarcasm is what that was…just for the record. But I had to buy these boots so that I can go do a physical inventory count of some sheet metal out at the client I’m working on right now. So to answer the question that everyone always asks me, NO, I do not just sit at a desk all day. The good news is that, even though these are probably one of the most disgusting things that I have ever paid money for, I get to charge it to Grant Thornton. Thus, I basically got a free pair of shit. Thrilling.

Ok I just got way off track. My point was that today I was walking into Walmart and this lady walking in front of me was smoking a cigarette. As we neared the front door, she took the half-smoked cig out of her mouth and flicked it on the ground. Here’s my issue here. Why in the world are people so OK with throwing cigs on the ground? Like I have no doubt that this lady would just as quickly drop a crumpled up receipt on the ground or throw a cup out of her window if she was out on an interstate highway. The thing is though that when people litter things other than cigarettes, they are generally really sneaky about it. Like if someone is going to drop a crumpled up receipt on the ground, he/she will do something like stick his/her hand in his/her pocket and nonchalantly let the receipt slip out onto the ground so that if someone was watching, the person might believe that the receipt had been dropped on accident.

Or if someone is going to toss a McDonalds cup out of the window at 75 miles per hour on the drive to Stillwater from Tulsa, he or she will usually wait until there aren’t many cars in sight to do it so that no one really sees it. You rarely see someone roll down their window when they’re driving right next to you and chuck some trash out onto the street. People are more secretive about their littering than that.

The difference with cigarettes though is huge! Not only do people not care if other people see them drop their cigs right on the ground, but they FLICK them!! A flick is by no means a nonchalant act. It’s not like you just don’t care if someone sees you DROP your cigarette on the ground. Instead, you use a fairly noticeable motion that essentially screams “yeah, I’m gonna toss this cig butt right here and I don’t even care.” It’s weird that cigs are the one thing that people brag about littering. ‘Cause that’s what that flick is. It’s like a brag that your trash is good enough that you can put it wherever you want.

I understand why things are that way though. It’s all this guy’s fault:

Him and his other Hollywood buddies made it cool to flick away wherever you want. I’m not saying that it gets me all worked up or that it even pisses me off or anything. I’m just pointing out the inconsistencies in the way that people treat their trash.

Well…this has once again gone on for entirely too long. I’ll leave you with just this:

That, my friends, is my running tally for how many peanut m&m’s I have eaten today. It is 2:45 pm and, as you can see, I have eaten 98 peanut m&m’s. That’s more than you think it is.

Peace out.