It’s Weezer, the 8-bit album, and it’s pretty brilliant.

Link.

I guess some net label called Pterodactyl Squad decided to make an album of some of Weezer’s well-known songs remade using 8-bit music generators or something and publish it directly into the internet tubes for freebie downloading.

So far, my favorite track on here is “In The Garage.” It almost made me start crying, I thought it was so good.

Pterodactyl Squad apparently released tons of other video game style music which I haven’t even checked out yet.

Alright, I guess that’s it. This was just a spontaneous post as a result of being so excited about 8-bit Weezer songs.

Later.

So I recently took a small vacation with my family. It was pretty nice. We went to Six Flags Fiesta Texas one day and to Schlitterbaun a couple days. Even though Fiesta Texas overall seemed past its prime, I’m glad I got to ride some pretty thrilling roller coasters. And I’m quite proud of my nephew who’s turning into a rather daring little scamp. Schlitterbaun was alright too. Spending a couple days in wave pools, looping rivers, inner tube chutes, body slides and things like that is obviously a good idea this time of year especially in this region of the world.

At the end of the vacation, my dad took me shopping for a suit, and my mom dropped a load of dough on a whole heap of kitchen equipment for me and my apartment. And my brother let me borrow some shows on dvd.  So now I figure I can look like a bad-ass while cooking up a super-fly meal for a date and then watch Outlaw Star. Or something like that, I guess. Or maybe only in my dreams. Since I really need to learn to cook stuff first. Also, I still need to get my suit tailored to fit properly. Also, it would be pretty risky trying to watch Outlaw Star with just any lady I’d take home. But if she were into it, that would be a pretty good sign, I suppose. Anyway, I’m very grateful to my family for their bountiful generosity.

So I watched the new Harry Potter with my brother while he was in town, and it reminded me I wanted to start reading the book series because that movie made me feel like there was a lot missing from it. And it seemed somewhat duller to me than a lot of the other H. to the P. movies.

The other day, my cousin announced to me that he’s aiming to perform a stunt around next May or so. His stunt will be to walk non-stop from Denver, Colorado to Las Vegas, Nevada. Wolfram|Alpha tells me that that’s roughly 610 miles. Pretty intense, eh? I think my cousin intends not to stop for food or sleep or anything, perhaps with the exception of going number two. He plans to have sponsors drop off food and water for him. He invited me to go along because he’d really appreciate the company, he said. I told him I’d really like to try and go as far as I can with him. I should probably think about training in that case. He’s already training by going several times a week to Red Rocks Amphitheater over there and doing two full laps up and down the rows of seating. I believe him when he says his calves are getting pretty massive.

There’s a lot I want to do lately such as resuming former hobbies like studying foreign languages and memorizing favorite poems. I want to maintain recent goals of reading something, writing something, and drawing something each day. I want to pick up new hobbies like learning to play this guitar that I’ve had for years or record collecting. I need to learn to cook. I want to explore Austin more and meet new people (people anything like me would be a swell bonus). And since I got my computer, I’ve been tempted to try out video blogging.

My parents reminded me we’re planning a trip to Hawaii this coming winter. Gosh dang, that’s awesome.

Bed time now bye.

I want to say that it was awesome having everyone visiting a while back. It was a joy having old friends coming and hanging out here in Austin. So thanks for staying awhile, guys.

I’ve had my own laptop computer for a few weeks now. For whatever reason I’ll mention that it is an Apple MacBook Pro, and it’s been great having it’s endless sources of diversion–online and offline. I’ve gotten back into drawing up random vector images on it, and I’ll probably be posting the more interesting ones on here. Here’s a start:

I don’t know if I’m actually finished with it yet. It’s my take on the Flickr.com Explore Panda depicted in part here:

Well hell. Here’s a link. I don’t know where the hell they got it from or why they use this image for puking up random photos, but that’s just awesome somehow. Seeing that rainbow vomiting panda for the first time really brightened my day.

So yeah. More such drawings are soon to come. Also I might post more links and references to other internet oddities I stumble over. Now that I have a computer, I’ll have all kinds of options.

I’m still trying to get more out of Austin all the time. I discovered via this vegetarian Meetup I attended that Hutt’s, a burger place on 6th street downtown, has TWO FOR ONE VEGGIE BURGERS EVERY MONDAY! Tschya! I know! I’ve taken full advantage of that sweet-ass deal a couple times already. I’ve succeeded in Operation Two-Burgers twice now. They have this one called the Beachboy or something like that which has pineapple rings and swiss cheese on it. My mouth waters for one right now.

I’m thrilled to say that Korey will be moving in with me in a bit over a month or so. He’s a savior, by the way. It will be awesome living with a good friend who I know I can trust and relate with.

Well, I guess that’s blog-enough for now. I’ll try to post more often.

Later,

Jason.

One night a few months back, feeling frustrated, I went out for a late night bike ride to vent (my van actually had a flat tire at this time, so biking was really my only option–that or walking). So there I was, just riding around a bit pretty close to home, trying to get my mind off of stuff, when I got an idea: I was getting pretty hungry already, so what I thought would do was ride my bike all the way down to Magnolia Cafe and have TWO entire fried egg sandwiches.

Here’s why: Manessah and I had been there a few times before, and I always ordered a fried egg sandwich because it’s the best sandwich of my entire life, and every time we went there and I had one I felt like I could have had two of them, but Manessah always convinced me that I shouldn’t and should just finish her home fries instead, which usually did it for me anyway.

But this particular night a few months ago I was out riding my bike around alone with no one to convince me that I shouldn’t go to Magnolia and eat two fried egg sandwiches, so that became my epic quest for the night. I knew that the bike ride all the way there would only increase my hunger, so it seemed like the perfect challenge. I would get there after a long and tiresome bike ride and be rewarded with a king’s feast of two fried egg sandwiches. Awesome. I felt an immediate sense of adventure for the journey at hand.

So I set my course down the feeders and side roads along Mo-Pac expressway going south. I biked up and down hills and over-passes. I passed the Domain without losing steam. But it wasn’t long before I began tiring, and the farther I went the less sure I was of just how far away Magnolia was, but I kept on.

I came to a gas station that still had a guy in there selling stuff through a slotted window, so I bought a bottle of water. I sat there awhile for a little rest, refreshment, and reflection. I wouldn’t let myself turn back; I had to fulfil my quest, so I got back on my bike and headed south again.

There came a stretch of highway without any kind of feeder, and I was actually biking down the shoulder which felt a little sketchy. Each time a road sign appeared from around a bend or over a ridge I hoped to read “Lake Austin,” which is the road that Magnolia is on, but I passed many signs in disappointment.

I tried cutting through a few side neighborhoods, and got to see families of deer out in some of them, which was cool. Sometimes a particularly big hill would come up, and I’d be too tired to do anything but walk the bike up, which was disappointing because I felt like it would take forever at that pace.

Eventually, though, I saw the sign for Lake Austin, and my spirit lifted a little. I turned down Lake Austin which goes uphill really soon and had to walk the bike the rest of the way up to Magnolia. I finally arrived, racked my bike, and went inside. I’d been riding over hills for something like two hours.

At this point, I felt retarded-tired–so tired that I felt sick–but I sat down and ordered my two fried egg sandwiches of destiny. I was sitting there in the booth and just couldn’t get comfortable. My body ached, and I felt like I needed to rest my head somehow or lie down. Soon my food arrived. I ate a bite and had to stop. I sat there a bit more, and then I had to get up and barf in their bathroom. Once I did that, I thought I felt a bit better and proceeded to eat up to half of the first sandwich, but I had to stop again. I couldn’t eat anymore and got a to-go box for the rest of my food.

Then I didn’t know how I was supposed to get home. I couldn’t ride the whole way back. I explained my situation to the waiter and asked him if he knew anyone who was getting off work soon who I could bum a ride from or something, but he didn’t know. Fortunately, a couple cab drivers were having a bite in the next booth and overheard my plea. One offered his services, and I accepted, but was unsure how I could get my bike home. I was really willing to abandon it and come back for it the next day, but it fit all the way into his trunk, which still closed. That was a relief.

He brought me home for about $20, and I went up and went right to sleep. [Edit: Here's where I failed to mention that I threw up all of the sandwich that I managed to eat earlier before going to sleep.]

Later I found out I’d biked about fifteen miles. It’s the crazyest thing I can remember ever doing.

I drove off back toward Austin, and I brought the rain and lightning with me. I took a different route returning because I was wide awake (for some reason I saw fit to have a double espresso to get through the nightly tasks at work) and I didn’t want to go home just yet. This way brought me closer to this cluster of radio towers that always reminded me of the Emerald City out of the Wizard of Oz–tall and always glimmering off in the distance, only red so like the “Ruby City” or something instead. I also hydroplaned farther than I think I ever have at some stop light. Anyway, back in Austin I arrived at Magnolia Cafe, this twenty-four-hour diner type place, to have my favorite sandwich of my entire life, a fried egg sandwich. I have a whole separate story to tell about Magnolia and fried egg sandwiches that I’ll tell here another time.

That aside, I’ll get on with the originally intended content of this blarg.

Well, also since I don’t have a computer, I don’t have anything onto which to download or research new music. So I’ve been actually buying cd’s lately. I KNOW!! Who even does that? Anyway, I already mentioned that I can’t really research music much, so how did I even know what to get? I suppose the world has a way of offering suggestions.

At Starbucks, they’ve been mixing in some of Camera Obscura’s latest release “My Maudlin Career,” and it sounded awesome, so I bought it, and instantly loved it.

The next day or so, I was with my work friend, Joe, at a 24 hour coffee house called Epoch. A quick word about Epoch–I’ve been looking for a place like this ever since I moved here to Austin. It’s always open. It has sweet atmosphere. I can go there whenever and just plant myself for however long and read or write or draw or anything. They serve coffee and espresso drinks to keep me going. Anyway, there I was with Joe at like 1 in the morning having an iced latte and a slice of pizza. They started playing the album “Writer’s Block,” by Peter, Bjorn, and John, and I was into it more than I have been into anything in a long time. I bought it the next day, and it’s been my favorite thing to listen to since then. P,B,&J have another album that came out more recently which I might get soon, too.

Yesterday, I didn’t have to go to work until 6:15, and Joe had the day off, so I said I’d go with him and another work friend, Bryan, to check this bike seller out. Brian ended up having some family picnic to go to, and the bike seller ended up being really ghetto-seeming (the next block down, I actually saw some people playing dice on the sidewalk! I never saw that IRL before, just on Chappelle’s show, I think.), so Joe and I drove right past and stopped by Waterloo records which wasn’t too far. I ended up buying an inexpensive harmonica which I’ll learn to play some deep blues on. After that we went to another coffee house called Mozart’s. It was down by the lake which was the main thing I liked about it because their coffee was pretty weak.

Today I have a day off, so I’ll go try to get into some adventures or something. Next step is to go to Starbucks and pick up my weekly tips and get heavily caffeinated. After that the sky is the limit. I have some wonderful music guiding me, and the weather is clement. I can do anything.

Jason

“I remember when, when I first moved here,

A long time ago,

‘Cause I heard some song I used to hear back then,

A long time ago.

…

And the question is, was I more alive

Then than I am now?

I happily have to disagree;

I laugh more often now, I cry more often now,

I am more me.”

–”Objects of My Affection” by Peter, Bjorn, and John

If I had access to these existential detectives, I would ask them the significance of seeing two drivers in a row in the drive through lane at work (Starbucks) wearing green corduroy pants. Who here can formulate a hypothetical significance for seeing two people in a row wearing this very specific type of pants.

Let’s try. Okay. The corduroy texture could represent pathways leading to something, like the ruts left by wagon wheels on a rustic road. In a pair of pants, two pant legs decend from one single waist. These could mean diverging routes in life–a fork in the road, so to speak. Green has a dualistic symbolism. It can mean freshness, growth, productivity, and luck as well as envy, poison, trickery, and evil. So, putting it all together, green corduroy pants mean that from where I am in life, paths may lead to either growth or ruin. So the prescription is that I need to be vigilant and careful and make sure to stay on the productive road and not fall to tricks and villains.

Does that sound like a reasonable conclusion?

Anyway, this has all been an exercise in hastey generalization and flawed inductive reasoning. But things like that can make life a little interesting sometimes.

Jason.

It’s this “computational knowledge engine” that they’re working on. You enter stuff and it generates corresponding output.

Here’s what I just found out about my birthday, January 7, 1984:

-It was a Saturday;

-It was 25 years, 4 months, and 11 days ago;

-It was 1323 weeks and 2 days ago;

-It was 9263 days ago;

-It was 25.36 years ago;

-It was the day of the death of Alfred Kastler, a physicist (whom I now know pretty for sure that I’m reincarnated from);

-On that day, the sun rose at 7:29 a.m. CST and set at 5:46 p.m CST, and the duration of daylight was 10 hours, 17 minutes.

-The moon was in a waxing crescent phase.

Wow, pretty cool! I may choose to celebrate my 10,000th day alive, which is coming up on Monday, May 25th, 2011. It’s just:

-2 years and 7 days from now;

-105 weeks and 2 days from now;

-737 days from now;

-2.0019 years from now;

-etc. about daylight and moon phase.

I can look up my hometown, Nederland, TX and know the following:

-It’s population is 16,751;

-It sits at 16ft above sea level;

-Beaumont, TX is 11 miles to the Northwest, and Houston, TX is 84 miles to the West.

-It also shows it on a map and tells me generally how the weather is right now.

This seems pretty awesome. It’s pretty much a sort of Wikipedia for objective data and computation. It looks as if they’re planning to put all the world’s data into this thing. Categories include Mathematics, Dates & Times, Statistics & Data Analysis, Places & Geography, Physics, Socioeconomic Data, Chemistry, Weather, Materials, Health & Medicine, Engineering, Food & Nutrition, Astronomy, Words & Linguistics, Earth Sciences, Culture & Media, Life Sciences, People & History, Technological World, Education, Transportation, Organizations, Computational Sciences, Sports & Games, Web & Computer Systems, Music, Units & Measures, Colors, and Money & Finance.

The potential for this thing seems pretty massive. I envision the future like a science fiction movie in which characters have a single source for looking up any kind of data they ever want (damn, I’m a nerd).

I’ll stop there.

Jason.

In my last post, I mentioned how I’m reacquainting myself with the Internets in order to reconnect with distant friends and to find more work opportunities and creative outlets. Well, in addition to that, I’m looking to meet new people who share interests in a variety of different things.

I remembered Meetup.com and just went nuts with it, looking up whatever vague interests I might have and joining any of the local groups corresponding with these ineterests.

They cut me off at 20 groups and basically said I could join 20 more tomorrow if I wanted, which I’ll probably do.

Anyway, maybe I’ll see an explosion of activity and variety in my life pretty soon.

Jason

P.S. – If I’d published this post before going to sleep, the time stamp would say something around 3:30 a.m. instead of 10 a.m.