Santa Claus is coming to town!!

Hello again my dear viewers,

It is that time again. Christmas is drawing ever closer. Which of course demands that I post a long insightful bit about the splendor of life, love, and the pursuit of material goodness.

I love Christmas time. I suppose that might be naive to say at nineteen years of age but none the less I love the cheer of the season.

With that said, I've been wanting to get something off my chest.... Here goes...

I like Christmas music.....There I said it! Don't hate me.

It's true, I came to the self realization this year that once the snow starts falling, and Christmas lights pop up, I ENJOY LISTENING TO CHRISTMAS MUSIC. Phew.... I feel like I just came out of the closet of Christmas music liking... I even made a mix of Christmas songs. But before you Scrooges out there begin to think less of me let me explain; I like classy Christmas music. I'm not talking about the poppy Christmas crap of todays generations. I'm talking about the OLD suff, like Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Gene Autry, And Ellla Fitzgerald. Many of the songs by these "crooners" date back to the 40's. But don't get me wrong, it is my belief that Christmas music should NOT be played until the very least the day after Thanksgiving, and must immediately stop the day after Christmas.

I hung ornaments on the Christmas tree today. It is one of my favorite parts of Christmas. I'm not sure why I like it so much. I suppose ever since I was a kid I've loved to hang ornaments. As I sat by the tree today sipping coffee I remembered the joy I felt as a kid when the tree would slowly get more shimmer, and eventually fill up underneath with brightly wrapped gifts.

Speaking of gifts, for once I'm actually on time with Christmas shopping. This is due to two reasons. The first reason being that I told myself I would not do it before last minute this year and the second is because I forced myself into as much online shopping as was possible to do. Don't get me wrong; I think online shopping is convenient and fast but it also can be fun to go out to actual stores too. Anyways, If you read my last post you will know I'm not great at managing my money. A few months back I bought a DVD off amazon.com, and used a free trial membership to their "prime" service to get free shipping. Unfortunately I forgot to cancel that free membership and my checking account was charged almost $80.00 dollars for a year subscription. The prime membership gives me access to free 2 day shipping on most items which is a great value but it's not worth what I was charged for it. So I've decided to get the most out of it and shop online this year. So far its working out pretty well, so at least I've done my best to fall on my feet I guess.

In other random and disconnected news,

Work is going well. Except for the recent Ice Storms which makes taking pizzas to someones door like skating across an ice rink filled with random objects. Though, The tips have been pretty good.

The playoffs for my family's Fantasy Football league are in sight. Unless Marques Colston plays the best game of the season, I will beat my brother winning my 4th consecutive game and will secure the 4th playoff seat. I've got my fingers crossed!

Also, I love Guitar Hero but I'm seriously stuck on 3s and 7s by Queens of the Stone Age on hard. The main riff is so damn hard. I seriously think I'm gonna chuck the guitar out the window in a minute.

In the event of admitting guilty pleasure music, I might be sacrificing some of my masculinity to admit this, but I also really like John Mayer. Although Most known for his radio overkilled pop fests like "Your body is a wonderland" He is actually a damn good guitarist. I mean the dude can seriously play some delicious blues/jazz guitar. Don't believe me? Listen to his cover of Hendrix's "Bold as Love" There is some face melting soloing. Also if you don't trust his guitar ability on his own work try out "Back to You" for some crisp jazzy licks. It's not as fast but it is really tasty.

Going back to Guitar Hero, and relating to non-guilty pleasure music; I obtained a copy of "Mothership" Led Zeppelin's newest greatest hits album with tracks awesomely remastered and hand picked by the now reunited members. In the light of talking about good guitar, I'm just gonna come out and say this: Jimmy Page is a Guitar God. I mean seriously listen to the solo in "Heartbreaker".... It's like putting one's face in a oven. I mean it seriously rocks! There is no reason in the world why Zeppelin is not featured in any of the guitar hero games. I sat and pretended to play the songs with my little plastic guitar and enjoyed it the other day! I can only imagine how fun it could be in the real game. But seriously if for whatever lame reason you don't like Zeppelin, go and listen to "Mothership" and come back to me. Without trying to sound like a self righteous zeppelin zealot, it will blow your mind.

Well thats all folks,

I can't guarantee how much I will update during the holidays but I'll do my best!







Sam

1984 and other thoughts.

I just got back a few hours ago from my 4 day weekend in Bloomington. It was well worth the trip as always. It was great to see my lovely girlfriend Kim and my 3 cousins Alex, Jilayne, and Chaz. Unfortunately I can fairly say I went over my budget for the trip as I seem to do every time. I always run into unexpected expenses no matter how much I plan. Oh well. As I said before I definitely enjoy going there and it is worth it, even if I go a few bucks over budget. That is not to say it's not irksome though. I used to not be so anal about money. I don't know if I'm just getting more mature about it, or becoming a tightwad. I guess either outcome is possible. Kim pointed out that ever since the Canada trip I have been more aware of my money, which I suppose is true. The Canada Trip http://thisiscanada.blogspot.com/ was a rather costly en devour. I think part of it though is not so much a single moment in time but the gradual realization that I will have college coming up soon and it will indefinitely become a black hole on my bank account. Besides Christmas is just around the corner and I can't underestimate the cost of that either.

Driving home tonight gave me couple solid hours to finish my latest muse of an audio novel. 1984 By George Orwell. In short, the book is none short of profound. However I owe it more than such a short description.

The Book was written in 1948 and provides a dystopian view of the future through Orwell's politically charged imagination. The novel centers around Winston Smith a middle class person living in the totalitarian society of Oceania. Winston dares to stray from the ideals of the party and "big brother" the famous character from the Novel. This is the main focus of the plot.

The novel was really gripping for a number of reasons. The first reason was that I felt like Orwell was way ahead of his time (literally) in how the novel was written. The language was clear and concise and the way he paints out the lifestyle of "the future" is in many ways strikingly real. Orwell also provides a lot of good characterization and details to bring the novel to life. However the main reason why this book blew my mind was how disturbing it was and how easily it got under my skin. Not only does Orwell describe the utter dehumanization of millions of people but he makes it seem so painful tangible. While I read the book I remembered thinking several times how glad I am to have the simple freedoms our society and government allows. For example the blog I'm writing at this moment is an exercise in Freedom of Speech. In the society from the book I would have been killed for "thought crime." While this might seem absurd the more one thinks about it the more possible it appears that a government entity with enough power has the power to completely control a human being. One of the abilities of the government in the book was the ability to control peoples minds. The scary thing is it wasn't by some futuristic technology but rather the total control of all media so as to completely control the information that people received regardless of it were true or not. The Novel ultimately begs the question, What if a Stalin/Hitler esque Totalitarian society was able to survive and evolve? It is something that is not totally unthinkable. Also what if the said society was able to realize its own evil and accept it as a means to gain power for the mere lure of power itself.

This was definitely an awesome read, and I highly recommend it. However it obviously wasn't much of a feel good book. In fact the only redemption it offers might be the warning it hides beneath it's pages.

That's about all I got tonight,




Sam