Its contents watched by sycorax, and patagon in paralax

So I finally fixed the sound card on my piece of shit computer. And by that I mean that my friend Rory suggested something really simple and obvious and it worked right away because I am useless.

Anyway the point is that now I've got access to a working sound-card and would like to use it to my advantage somehow, but I can't think of a way to. So yeah.

In the way of music, I've got a few things to talk about, I think.

First of all is Pearl Jam. I always hated those guys, just based on the few songs I had ever heard on the radio I always wrote them off as annoying and just not my thing. Again, after talking to Rory a lot, I decided to give them an actual chance and downloaded their first album "Ten". I am an idiot. I will never immediately write a band off again without listening to at least an album by them. Ten is great, even songs like Even Flow (which I used to despise) are so good in context. I am going to give the rest of these guys' discography a listen, anyhow.

Next up is The Decemberists, I've liked these guys for a while, but I had never thought to mention them to anybody, just one of those situations where I listened to them enough that I assumed everyone else had as well. They have a sort of a folk sensibility and almost like a 'sea shanty' type feel sometimes, while simultaneously rocking you so very very hard. I would suggest listening to The Crane Wife if you are unsure. Their albums vary as much as any band I suppose, but I think the sound of that album is what hooked me. Very good.

In the way of indie music, I saw a band called Arc The Line play last weekend and they were fantastic. I always like it when I go out to see one band that I like (Max Galactic, in this case) and I end up discovering more awesome bands like this. I haven't given their album a listen yet but I plan to in the very near future, so I'll get back to you on that.

I saw UP, twice. I loved it. I think that it might be as good as Wall-E in my books, I was tempted to say better for a while, but they're just too different I think to really compare in that general a sense (read: I don't know which one I liked more so this is how I bitch out of making a decision).

I am going to see Sonic Youth at the end of the month, apparently, so that should be fun. I am not familiar enough with them to say anything definitively about how I feel about them, but from what I know about them the show promises to be kick-ass. I'll tell you how that went, too.

Then of course there's the Zappa/Dream Theater show at the end of the summer, I am looking forward to that like nobody's business. I will talk more about that later, too.

That's about all I've got right now. I am planning on getting back into Starcraft, so anybody who wants to do that with me should let me know.

Ja