A Sad Day

It was about 7:15 am this morning, I had woken up just a few minutes before from a night that didn’t provide much rest in the classic sense of the word. It happens to me from time to time when I just don’t sleep well; this in spite of my current Sigur Ros fascination, which I have been playing regularly when I go to sleep.

I had just stepped into the kitchen to throw some waffles in the toaster when my home phone rang. “Who the hell is calling me at this hour?” I thought to myself as I made my way over to the phone. Whenever calls like that come early in the morning you have to brace yourself for the worst. It was Adrian and he stated off by simply asking if I heard what happened.

“No” I said in a garbled kind of morning voice that non-morning people get when they have to rise before double digits.
“Hunter Thompson killed himself.”
“What?!” I exclaimed. The interrogation was going to begin with “when did you hear about this?” Some how I was hoping it was just some sort of internet rumor that spread like wildfire, but he said that he heard it on the Today Show. I tend to watch Good Morning America, and they hadn’t said anything about it, or I simply missed it from earlier.

I walked over to my computer, and refreshed the New York Times page, and saw the headline in the sidebar. We spoke a few more minutes, and then I turned back to the computer to read the headline again: Hunter S. Thompson, 67, Author, Commits Suicide, from NY Times:

Hunter S. Thompson, the maverick journalist and author whose savage chronicling of the underbelly of American life and politics embodied a new kind of nonfiction writing he called "gonzo journalism," died yesterday in Colorado. Tricia Louthis, of the Pitkin County Sheriff's Office, said Mr. Thompson had died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound at his home in Woody Creek, Colo., yesterday afternoon. He was 67.

I will lift one of his phrases from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
“There he goes. One of God's own prototypes. Some kind of high powered mutant never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die.”

Calling My Shot part 2

Here we go wtih round 2. I am going to try an kncok out the rest of the rock nominees at least.

Best Rock Performance

• Vertigo U2


• Monkey to Man Elvis Costello


• American Idiot Green Day


• Somebody Told Me The Killers


• Take Me Out Franz Ferdinand

The winner is: Propbably going to be U2, but I would prefer Franz Ferdinand to win this. I remember hearing them shortly after they won the SxSW show in Austin, and they hooked me then.

Best Alternative Album

• Franz Ferdinand Franz Ferdinand


• Medulla Bjork


• Uh Huh Her PJ Harvey


• Good News for People Who Love Bad News Modest Mouse


• A Ghost is Born Wilco

The winner is: Franz Ferdinand!

Best Metal Performance

• Vermillion Slipknot


• Nymphetamine Cradle of Filth


• Live for This Hatebreed


• The End of Heartache Killswitch


• Whiplash Motorhead

The winner is: none of them! Giving an award for this category is an oxymoron at best. Which band can play louder, faster, or distort vocals more?

It Just Doesn't Make Sense

This has been out for a little while, but I figured i would post something on it myself. From The New York Times

In the months before the Sept. 11 attacks, federal aviation officials reviewed dozens of intelligence reports that warned about Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda, some of which specifically discussed airline hijackings and suicide operations, according to a previously undisclosed report from the 9/11 commission.

Full Story here (NY Times)

This certainly seems like W had something to hide prior to the elections - classified until now; hmmm.

Memory's Faults

On my way to the gym from work i listen to NPR to get caught up on the happenings in the world. They tend to run their wrap of the news on the half hour marks, but I get out to my car shortly after that. If it is still early in the hour they will typically go in depth with one of the larger news stories of the day, bringing in people to interview and give their opinions on events. If it is later in the hour you may catch stories about how cow bells were used in 70's era rock songs and have since all but disappeared, or one like that aired on Wednesday February 9th about how memory can fail.

It went on to say that the memory actually ends up distorting the truth. Granted the human brain could not simply capture all of the detail that occurs at a single event, it would be over whelming, but getting the gist of it typically comes naturally. They used the verdict of the OJ Simpson case about eight years ago as an example. They asked students at a college in California several days after the verdict was announced where they were when it was announced. In as little as 32 months time answers started to vary where they heard the verdict (Allow me to gloat a bit here, I was in my high school keyboarding class when Ms. Igo, the teacher came in and told us that he was not guilty. I vividly remember talking to a couple of people in the class and put my personal prediction of what the verdict was going to be, that being not guilty. Although I still to this day say he did kill them, even though he was found innocent). "The source of information becomes critical, but the brain confuses information gained directly from the senses with information from the imagination or from another persons suggestion."

Elizabeth Loftus is a memory expert at the University of California at Irvine; she says it is extraordinarily easy to induce false memories about people’s childhoods. Since the gist of the memory is there one could simply embellish what happened with details of things that never did happen.

Granted this is not earth shattering, people do forget things – but I found the story interesting regardless.

Calling My Shot

I thought it would be fun to see what kind of acceracy I can pull at the Grammys. provided personal prefereance will leak into some of my predictions I will do it never the less.

Album of the Year

• Genius Loves Company Ray Charles & Various Artists


• The Diary of Alicia Keys Alicia Keys


• Confessions Usher


• The College Dropout Kanye West


• American Idiot Green Day

The winner will probably end up being Kayne West, but I would prefer Green Day winning because of the way their album was written and constructed.

Record of the Year

• Yeah Usher


• Let's Get it Started Black Eyed Peas


• Heaven Los Lonely Boys


• American Idiot Green Day


• Here We Go Again Ray Charles & Norah Jones

The winner will be Yeah by Usher hands down.

The last one I will do today is

Best Rock Album

• American Idiot Green Day


• The Delivery Man Elvis Costello


• The Reason Hoobastank


• Contraband Velvet Revolver


• Hot Fuss The Killers

The winner here is, Green Day. I say this because I think they will get snubbed in the album of the year category, and it is simply too good an album to not win. The Killers album is also strong, and deserving of the nomination, but I don't think it will or should win.

We'll see if I get more up by Sunday!

Oh, I am still working on day two of the wedding wrap up. I'm just about through the ceramony, and the after ceramony festivities still needs to get written down. I am working on it though.

Just a Bit of Neglect

I am still working on day two of my summary from the events of January 14th to January 16th. I would say I am about half way done with day two, and I will probably keep day three off of here for personal reasons.

Winter finally seemed to show up here for more than a two stay lay over. It has been in the lower 50s and mid 40s for the past few days, I realize that this isn’t real winter weather depending on where you live, but alas this is south Texas, home to two seasons, not four.

The other big event which occurred over the week end was of course the elections in Iraq. Prior to people going to the polls there were numerous reports of severe retaliation for taking part in the election process, how ever this was brought forward by the Suni population which is in minority to the Shiite population who largely seemed to favor Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.

The have mixed thoughts on the elections which took place, on one hand it is the start of a democracy, people selecting their leaders. However there are other problems which will arise, like the Suni's largely not being represented in certain cities across Iraq, and even if they all voted for an individual of their liking the Shiite population would overshadow them based on pure numbers. Furthermore this was released as well Militant leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has vowed to continue fighting despite Sunday's election. He described the election as an "American game."

There is also this, compliments of Democracy Now:
Tensions Rise Betweens Kurds & Turkish over Kirkuk
In the northern city of Kirkuk it appears the main Kurdish alliance will win two-thirds of the vote in a regional election to form the provincial council. This raises new fears that tension could escalate between the Kurds and Turkey. Turkey opposes the oil-rich city of Kirkuk from being the capital of the autonomous Kurdish region. Because of the area's oil wealth Turkey also fears the Kurdish area may break away from the rest of Iraq and form a separate country.

Only time will tell what will happen.