THINGS BRIAN DOES WHEN HE GETS BORED

That's right kids, another themed post from your one and only Brian K. I plan to lay out a few things I do to pass the time, when I find myself idle.

(1) Read
If you've read my other posts, you'll notice that I enjoy a good read. I'm such a nerd about it that I kept track of how many books I read in 2008. Any guesses? 65. Since I was introduced to the many used book stores around Columbus, I have started picking up bargain books whenever I see a deal. Because of this, I have probably around 40 books that I haven't read yet. Even though I average slightly more than one book a week, I still buy them faster than I read them. This is becoming a problem because I'm quickly running out of space for my inventory. I've had to make a few rules too, such as: I can only have 2 unread books by the same author and I can only buy books once while reading each book, thus decreasing the amount of pileup. God, I now realize how big of a nerd I am. Oh well, at least I'm a literate nerd!

(2) Hang with the Homies
I have quite a few friends in quite a few different circles which is WONDERFUL. Anytime I'm feeling anything, chances are I know someone who knows what I'm going through or shares the same view. It also helps that Columbus is such a big city that I always have something to do. I've even started to locate my favorite places to do things:
-The Cup of Joe's in German Village makes the best coffee. However, no other Cup of Joe in Columbus makes a drinkable cup of coffee.
-The Brenen's Coffee House on High Street has great everything bagels and strawberry cream cheese.
-The amphitheatre on South Campus near Mirror Lake is the best place to read in the summer.
-Polaris has the best mall to spend money at, Easton has the best mall to walk around wishing you had more money.
-The Beir Stube is the best bar because their juke box has good music and not the crap you hear at other bars.
-Powell is the best area to drive around because the houses are so beautiful.
But anyway, I love to hang out with friends. We tend to do the same things, like eat at the China Garden in Graceland and shop at Half Price Books, but every once and a while we have great adventures.

(3) Surf
Over the years I've found a great many websites to love. Here are a list of a few of them:
Livejournal I've had my livejournal account (bkdeftones, I was an unoriginal high schooler, get over it) for 5 years. It's a great community where my friends and I keep in touch. Over the years posts have decreased as people got wrapped up in college and the real word, but I love that I can go to a specific day and remember exactly what happened (especially since I have a horrible memory). It also works wonders for recapping concert experiences. I know I'll never forget the first time I saw Thursday, the time when I was front row center and Geoff came off stage and sang to the crowd while grabbing my arm for support. However, I may not remember that I was able to get the Thursday polo I still have were because I found that fifty dollar bill between sets at Warped Tour '06.
Twitter I'm new to the whole Twitter thing, but I am addicted to it. It's horrible. I'm actually ashamed to have an account (theKovesciMan, follow me!). I mean, It's another good way to keep in touch with people, even more so than livejournal because you know what they're doing AT ALL TIMES, but it's also cool because I can follow bands I love (Thursday, Anthony Green, and the Silversun Pickups) and they'll make a post the instant things change (add new stuff to their merch site, their progress in recording their new album, promos they are offering). It makes me feel that much closer to them.
Facebook I hate facebook but I LOVE facebook. It's such an odd thing to know some people you have class with, know certain details about them, and never have seen them in person. Perhaps it's just that I'm a passive facebook stalker, but it's creepy, right? But I do love it because it allows me to keep track of things that are happening through the student activity clubs and it reminds me when people's birthdays are. It really does come in handy, and I'm pretty sure anyone who reads this will have a facebook profile, but still, it is a very cool and odd site.
Last.fm I love last.fm. If you've never visited it, I suggest doing so now. It's a band database website. If you download the widget, last.fm will keep track of the songs you listen to and make statistics based on them such as your most listened to song of the past week, month, year, ever, or the same thing for a particular band. It then goes on to list out recommendations for you, and let me honestly tell you that 95% of the bands they introduce me to I think are awesome. There is also an "Event" tab that lists out upcoming concerts in your town. If you go to a band's page, you can see a bio, album list, song list, videos, photos, and much much more. I'm telling you, it's a pretty sweet site for anyone who appreciates music.
Postsecret Everyone and their mother had heard about Postsecret. I've been following in religiously for years. It has become part of my Sunday routine. Actually, it's the first thing I do when I wake up on Sunday. It's amazing how touching some of them can be. I read my favorite postcard shortly after we had to put my dog down. It was really hard for me because he was my dog, and he was relatively young, but we think someone poisoned him because his health deteriorated and we had no other choice but to put him down. This all happened a month before I came to college. This postcard says everything I was thinking, and it felt good to know that someone else in the world loves their dog as much as I loved mine. I'll always have Postsecrets to thank for that.

Well, I'm pretty tired, and I keep blowing my nose every few minutes because I have a stupid cold, so I think I'm going to bed. Wish me luck on my tests this week! I hope you all have a good one.

Listening to: Explosions in the Sky

BLAM

This doesn't count as a post, I just want to give Animal Collective props. I've heard from countless sources recently that their new album Merriweather Post Pavilion is utterly fantastic.

It could be my elitist mentality, but whenever I hear from other people that something is great without hearing about it myself first, I tend to be hesitant, and I was definitely hesitant about this. Today, after class, I had 2 minutes to kill when I was waiting for my bus, so on the way to my stop I meandered into the House of Music, my favorite indie record store in the world, and picked up the CD. I rarely pick up new CDs on a whim, but very reliable sources like it, so I figured I'd give it a shot. I am so glad I got it because it's great.

Anyway, go back to your lives.

Listening to: Animal Collective

What's your favorite new album that came out in the last 3 months?

I can't answer that question so I'm going to tweak it a bit so I can:
What's your favorite new album that came out in the last 5 months?

I'm not going to lie, I haven't been on the music ball lately, so I'm not sure what's going on now musically. All I know is that no one I really care for is coming to Columbus, and none of my favorite bands have released albums within the past 3 months. This is why I have to change the topic a bit. The last time I made a trip to a music store for a specific new release was in September when the latest the Sounds of Animals Fighting CD was dropped. Therefore, I choose

The Ocean And The Sun by the Sound of Animals Fighting

This band is an experiment that tries to unite several art forms into one entity. Their live shows consisted not only of live music, but also artists making paintings on stage, poetry reading, and performances by masked and costumed individuals. None of their albums sound alike, and neither do any of their songs.

This is TSOAF's third studio release, and you can definitely tell they've had experience in the recording process. In this album, they continue to pay attention to the detail of the music by way of interlocking different time measures and instruments, but they also produced the hell out of it, making it sound a lot smoother than their previous releases.

They do plenty of odd things that really make this a unique album. The album starts of with the reading of a poem, but the poem is not in English. I had to look up the lyrics for the English translation (and the poem itself is both beautiful in its original form and in the English translation). You can listen to a song 5 times and still not understand the timing structure because they tend to change the tempo and measure counts frequently. Just pay attention to the drum beats in "The Heraldic Beak of the Manufacturer's Medallion" and it becomes painfully obvious that they are in a level all their own. The album should not be labeled underneath one genre category because within each song you can find clear influences from several different types of music (including music foreign to English-speaking music fans). Listening to "Uzbekistan" proves this because the vocals in this song sound reminiscent of old-fashioned music our grandparents listen to. However, pay attention to the rest of the song and you notice the modern use of the synthesizer and drum beats, and the guitars are pure distorted and layered 80's rock. Sprinkled in the middle of the song are whispers and the sounds of pages turning. Extra sound clips, whispers and speeches such as these are common throughout the album, making the listener realize that this is a different league of band whose goal is not to be on Billboard's Top 100, but rather to make beautiful and unique music.

The album as a whole is a piece of art. I hope people give this album a chance because it is special.

Listening to: The Sound of Animals Fighting

BAM!

I had everything set up to go to the Cursive show. Everything was perfect; I got out of class at 7:18 and the doors opened at 8, there were no Ticketmaster tickets so I'd just pay at the door, the venue was 2.5 blocks away from my house so I could drink and walk... the planets aligned for this event. HOWEVER, as it turns out, tickets were secretly being sold at an indie record store in the Short North and they sold out. OH, WELL THAT'S JUST GREAT! I got angry and drove to a friend's house to cool off. I had the whole evening planned and Magnolia Thunderpussy (the record store) ruined everything! As I admitted to my room mate, I only have one of their albums (The Ugly Organ), and off that album I only really love one song ("Some Red Handed Slight of Hand"), so I wasn't crushed but overall disappointed. I could have seen a band I enjoy (okay, whose one album I have I enjoy {okay, out of which I really enjoy one song}), for relatively cheap, but it wasn't meant to be.

I left my friend's and got home around midnight. Figuring that was not terribly late for a small venued show, I headed over there in hopes of perhaps picking up a CD for $10. When I got there, a lot of the crowd was outside smoking so no one noticed when I walked in. And who was on stage? Cursive. They were in between songs and when they started playing again what song did they play? "Some Red Handed Slight of Hand." I couldn't have asked for better timing. There is no way this could get better, so I picked up a CD and left.

From my perspective, the cosmos were perfectly aligned this evening. I'm not terribly into Cursive and probably wouldn't have enjoyed a full set. I probably would have been bored with the local openers. I didn't have any company so I would have nothing to do between sets. I didn't end up paying for a ticket. I didn't spend money at the bar. I drove (the 2.5 blocks).

I can't tell you how pleased I am with this evening. I felt I needed to support Cursive (and I wanted to give them another shot) so I picked up the Storms of Early Summer: Semantics of Song for $10.

How awesome is that?

Don't push me, I am not okay (those are lyrics, I'm not really upset)

I haven't been to a concert since October. I usually go to 20+ concerts in a year, and I feel like I've been missing out. Columbus has hit a dry spell; there hasn't been anyone worth seeing since October. Therefore I feel obligated to see Cursive on Wednesday.

Having said that, I am a little skeptical about the venue Cursive is playing at. It's a bar about 4 blocks from where I live, and I'm worried because I thought Cursive was bigger than a small dive bar. There are so many better venues in Columbus, why this crappy bar? Oh well, I have to suck it up and go to this show because I miss the show scene. AND tickets are only $12.

So tomorrow, if I have time, I'll go pick up a ticket at a Ticketmaster outlet. I foresee a fun time. I wish I had someone to go with :(

As is the life of an Indie kid without an Indie friend :(

Enough of this self-pity crap. I'm going to go watch some more Arrested Development.

But first, did you see Fox won the battle against Warner Brothers and the Watchmen movie will come to theatres on March 6th? I'm excited.

Listening to: Rage Against the Machine, Kill Hannah, the Black Keys, Sleater-Kinney

You put the weights all around yourself

Since I first heard Interpol I've been a fan. Over the years, my tastes have changed. I used to swear by TURN ON THE BRIGHT LIGHTS. It was their first album and a great on at that. It had such powerful and emotional songs with sweet bass lines, complimenting guitar riffs, haunting vocals and great lyrics. However, as I said, over the years my tastes and preferences have changed. I now love ANTICS a hell of a lot more than before. I don't think it flows as well as TOTBL, but its songs are better by themselves. This is odd because I usually hold that exact argument against certain bands' albums. For some reason, I put Interpol in a different league (probably because they are one of my high school bands that I'll always love but constantly reevaluate).

Anyway, enough blabbing for one day. I'll go somewhere and read more Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. It's a good read, it's just so LONG so I don't get the satisfaction of completion like I do with smaller books. I like to constantly read new things, and it seems like more of the same thing (or at least more of a similar thing) with this book. Like I said, it's good, and I do enjoy reading it, but after a while, I start thinking, "oh, yeah, that again."

Later y'all

Listening to: Interpol

I, the Swan

So we're back to the same old crap again. School started, snow fell, homework was assigned, and the cold is unavoidable.

This quarter I need to read Newsweek for one of my Marketing classes. I was VERY skeptical about it. Afterall, my parents read Newsweek! I'm 22! I still subscribe to AP Magazine! Well, I gotta do what I gotta do. Today I picked up Newsweek and for some miracle I can't put it down. I NEVER would have pegged myself as one of THOSE people. Anyway, long story short, I think I'm going to subscribe so I don't have to shell out $5.95 every week to feed my new habit.

Oh, and I saved a butt-load of money by switching to Amazon for my textbook needs.

Last thought: I can't get enough of the new the Sounds of Animals Fighting CD. Really readers, go buy it. If you don't like it, you're wrong. You like it.

Listening to: the Sounds of Animals Fighting

This guy is not ready for Winter quarter to begin.

Listening to: Tortoise