I've just come to the conclusion that "bike" is a funny word.

You know you're in love...

You know you're in love when...

Those songs on the radio which you would originally have called "mushy" now make sense to you (and you even consider some of them "profound").

The object of your affections is all you can really think about. S/he's on your mind all the time...in the car going places...doing chores around the house...swimming in the pool...

You write a sonnet for the object of your affections (now come on, who HONESTLY writes a sonnet...?)

You prolifically write love songs about the object of your affections but get rid of more than half of them because you think they express your emotions a bit TOO accurately...

The Vegetarian

I met my friend Alexandra at the park today. She proudly announced that she is going to become a vegetarian. I thought this was a very interesting and rather admirable idea. (She's still going to eat mealworms and crickets though. She likes eating bugs, and she claims that the bugs were not mistreated, thus she can eat them.) I thought this was actually a pretty good idea. I couldn't become a vegetarian though. I really need to eat my meat. I'm sort of a carnivore. My sandwiches contain meat, and I like to eat chicken and rice for dinner. Actually - since I had chicken and rice for dinner, and my meat sandwich for lunch, and my breakfast included bacon, I had meat at every meal today. Actually, I'm sort of proud of this fact, though I can't tell why.

Pippin SINGS! (oh no everybody, run and hide!)

Ever noticed how I keep insisting that I'm a musician except none of you have ever actually heard me sing? Well, today's your lucky day! I've uploaded a few recordings of my singing on YouTube! Note that they're only covers. This is because I'm not at the point where I'm ready to put up my original songs. (But they'll be on there someday, I promise!)

Seven Seas of Rhye

Rhiannon

Wish You Were Here

Any comments on them would be ever so greatly appreciated. I've gotten curious what people think of them anyway.

Maybe it's just me...

...or maybe it's my obsession with classic rock. I dunno. I've been watching Star Wars films as of late with my sister. I have nothing against Star Wars, I actually think it's quite brilliant (despite all the ideas and situations it presents that have become cliched over time; I don't think most of them were very cliche when it came out). However, while watching Revenge of the Sith, I realized that Anakin looks somewhat like Syd Barrett. (Well, there's this one picture of the band, with all five members, and he DOES look somewhat like Syd in that picture...) And when I watched A New Hope last night, I thought Luke looked sort of familiar...then I realized it! He looks like John Paul Jones! Somewhat! No, not the Revolutionary War guy! The Led Zeppelin guy! I defy anybody to prove this wrong! Yeah!

Huh...maybe it's just me, though...am I right? Or am I crazy?

Oy vey!

Oy vey! It's been a long time since I last wrote here. Lots of stuff has gone on since then. Like what, for example? Well, I've written a new album. Which amazed me, 'cause it took me only four days to write and record ALL the material. I think it's because the arrangements are simpler this time. Mostly it's just me and my guitar. Yeah...I've also written and recorded a brand new song. Actually, two songs. This might not seem so cool, except - they're over 20 minutes long. Yeah! I've decided to stop talking about those legendary progsters and become one myself! Pretty awesome, huh? It's going to be on an album of mine entitled A Round Trip and Back Again. (It's sort of a joke - The Hobbit is also called There and Back Again, and it's sort of a round trip because it starts and ends similarly. Also, it's alphabetical. My first album was called Phoenix, then the next one shall be called Queen of Hearts, and then Round Trip...see? It's the alphabet!)

I will do what I can to record more on here. Partly I feel discouraged because nobody actually reads this stuff that I put up. At least, nobody comments on what I've written! What's wrong with you readers? Comment more! Argh! Comment! Comment! (No I'm kidding...though I'd really appreciate it if more than one person commented.)

Hee hee!

How stuff happens

Ever notice how stuff can happen, just spontaneously, and whether you meant it or not, it can change the course of your afternoon, or your week, or possibly your life? That's what happened to me last night and today.

You see, I was playing around with Harrison (my uke) last night, when Becky came into my room and asked what I was doing. So I showed her what I was playing. Just random chords and stuff. Then I began playing We Like the Moon and then I realized it had a real catchy chord progression. So I decided to improvise lyrics to a totally different tune (as though We Like the Moon even HAS a tune). So I did this for a while, and Becky was watching me with rapt attention (at least, I THINK it was rapt attention). And when it was done, I realized I had a nifty song there. So the next day I recorded it. I guess that's how you break songwriter's block. Just improvise random stuff to a random tune and that ought to work.

And yesterday, I announced to Mum that I was bored. So she spontaneously just said, "You want to go to the museum?" Becky and I said sure, so that settled it. We off and went to the museum. Which was fun.

And then there's my Wall of Songs. It's something in the back of my journal. You see, I was bored and loitering in my room yesterday so I looked at the back inner cover of my journal. My journals are just composition books that I get at the store and put cool pictures on the covers of. But the back inner cover is just random junk that they put in composition books. So I wrote Echoes in small lettering on the back. This is Echoes as in the Pink Floyd song. I was not satisfied with this. So I wrote Long Away. And Across the Universe. And Moonage Daydream. And Tangerine. Until I had a whole wall of songs on the back cover. (Well, it seems like a wall to me!) So now, when I'm bored, I can just write a random song title on the back of my book. All born out of spontinaity. (I can't spell that word.)

And I guess that's how stuff happens.

Venting my frustration.

I went to Office Depot today, after waiting all week for Mum to take me. I had some gift cards, and I had no idea how much was on them. I was hoping a lot. I was pleased to discover that they had 17 bucks on 'em. Now, I wanted to get an iPod card with them, and since I was feeling rich I got two. I tried to buy them along with a special plastic box to put my CD's in (I store my little treasures under my bed), except then I discovered you can't buy iPod cards with gift cards. Very upset, I paid for one in cash and used the card on my box.

I then got the idea to give mum the cards to buy a keyboard for our new computer if she took the cards, which she did. There was some confusion however, it was so confusing I won't get into now. So I was upset because I was of the impression mum was mad at me. In the car she convinced me she wasn't. I went home happy.

I got home and I tried to use the cards. One of them supposedly wasn't valid. (Don't ask me why, it looked totally valid to me.) The other one wasn't activated by the fellow at Office Depot. I was first mad, then I got upset and started crying. I told mum what happened. Now, maybe this doesn't seem like a big deal to you, but you have to remember, I was looking forward to getting those cards all week, and they'd cost me $30 (which doesn't seem like a lot to some but is nearly a fortune to me). And now I couldn't use the bloody things. Mum, who has infinitely more patience than I do, decided she'd try to figure out my technological issues. And viola! She got one of the cards to work. The other one still has yet to be activated. We might see about that tonight. I doubt it though. Mum's having issues with another computer. It won't work. I don't know everything about it as I don't want to get into her problems. (It'd make her mad I fancy.) If we have any luck we might get our problems solved tomorrow. Or maybe the day after. Hopefully within the week. It's Monday.

Anyway, I decided that if the other one didn't work that was no problem, I could just work for money to get myself another one. I am trying to convince myself that money is absolutely nothing and is no object of any kind. But it is, alas. So I used my iPod card that I already had to buy an album, The Six Wives of Henry the Eight. It is a very good album, even if it's all instrumentals. No problem of any kind! (Heck, if Rick Wakeman is the fellow singing in the background of some Yes songs, then maybe I don't want to hear his voice.) Though, Catharine of Aragon sounds a lot like a song I composed (which oddly enough is similarly titled as Aragorn Rhapsody.) Perhaps I shouldn't be so sad, as I got to meet with my best friend today, and we spent four hours of nonstop fun together. Life is admittedly good.

Give us SparkNotes!

Okay. So I was thinking about SparkNotes today. It's kind of a cool concept, if you know what I mean...little study guides for books you might read in school and stuff...I was looking at their website a while back and saw they have study guides for films, too. (Star Wars was one of them, which I found rather funny.)

Except then I thought about it - and then I realized. SparkNotes doesn't have guides on the pieces of art that truly matter. Namely I'm talking about stuff like "Tommy" and "The Wall".

Nope, I'm not kidding. SparkNotes should make a series of books on famous rock operas. I say this because they could actually occasionally be useful. No kidding. A friend of mine who graduated college a while ago told me that once, they had the students do a little lesson-thing on The Wall. Yeah, like the Pink Floyd album. It actually was the Pink Floyd album. And then they made them watch the movie. Yeah...I made a little joke to her about how The Wall is either a piece of genius, horribly depressing, or Roger Waters whining about his life instead of getting one. (If by some random chance Roger Waters is reading this - I apologize and hope he doesn't take it as anything more than a joke.)

So seriously, SparkNotes should make little guides to stuff like The Wall, or Tommy. Tommy's practically a classic as it is! There should seriously be a series of SparkNotes books on albums. If somehow they could figure out a way to do albums that weren't just rock operas, then I'll bet they ought to try something like Sgt. Pepper's. Seriously! Somebody ought to make up this stuff before I get to it. Naah, then I get to say it's my idea. But honestly! They should do that!

No More Computer Room

The computer on which I type all this stuff has moved. No more computer room. It is now in the family room, where one would find the television. The advantage of this is that I can use the piano now. Our piano (Lennon, as I named it) is in the family room. The computer used to be in its own little room. But now it's moved.

Advantages: I can use the piano to record with Lennon now.

Disadvantages: I can't work if my sister is in the room, I can't use Wakeman (the keyboard I used to use) because it's in the other room, and if someone comes into the room (which they ALWAYS do) - I can't work.

Hmm...there's a 1 to 3 ratio of advantages to disadvantages. Do you think I approve of the change?