I listen to different songs depending on my mood. If I have a lot of negative energy, I listen to stuff that is loud, fast, and heavy. If I'm feeling mellow, then what I listen to will be mellow.

What's interesting though is what I listen to when I'm pissed off about something. It's quite a wide-range of songs, and is utterly situational. By situational, I'm not referring to the description of that which is pissing me off. I'm referring to the other end of the spectrum, and you have to understand that most of the time something that pisses me off isn't generally the reason I'm pissed off. It's usually what I have to do to fix whatever it is. Or, conversely, it's me being unable to do anything at all.

A good example of this is the situation going on right now with my ear. I'm not pissed that it's clogged. I'm pissed that it's SO clogged that I have to take time out of my life to go to a doctor to get it fixed. I can deal with a bit of discomfort for a few days, but this is ridiculous.

So anyway, I found a song that fits my current mood that I would like to share with you. (I'm listening to it with my left ear only, considering I can't hear even music coming from an earbud in my right ear. Pathetic.)

I mentioned a few days ago about Blue October, and I've grown attached to another one of their songs called "Drilled a Wire through My Cheek" Nice title, no?

For the most part, my reason for liking this song is primarily for the way the chorus sounds. The words of this chorus are quite simple:

So drill it. So drill it.
So hard.
I feel it.
*screaming*

(Any good song in an "I'm Pissed" playlist should have screaming in it.)

The rest of the lyrics are also quite intriguing, and I've yet to decide for myself exactly what they mean. Blue October is the type of band who wants you to come to your own conclusions as to what their songs mean, and they never really tell you what THEIR idea of the meanings are. The first part of it, at first glance, appears to be about rape:

I try to stay on top of you
To hold your body down
Your shaking seems to hinder
Every grap that I have found

But I'm not convinced that rape is even a theme of this song. The best that I've come up with so far is that the guy in the song tried everything to give his best to a girl, and it was never enough. Of course, my favorite eight lines of the song don't exactly jive with that idea:

It's proof to show that I bleed for this
And I've cut myself the shame.
But to get to know this masochist
Who has stolen my first name
Pretending he's a teacher
Holding all my weight at ease
Yet the teacher seems to split in two
Destroying both his knees

Your guess is as good as mine. I suppose the teacher could be himself. He could have gone insane from trying to please this girl, and developed a second personality.

In any case, it's a great song. I highly recommend you check it out if you have the chance, especially if you're in a mood matching mine at this point and time.

Back to my scripting I go.

Huh? What?

I remember when I was a little kid, I had a bit of trouble with my ears. I would get a lot of inner ear infections. It was nothing terribly out of the ordinary, but it ended with me getting tubes inserted into my canals. Not something that every kid gets, but it's not uncommon either. since childhood, I have had no problems with my ears whatsoever.

Warp zone to present day.

After I took a shower on Friday, my right ear felt clogged, as if I had gotten some water in it or something. I did all the usual tricks to get it out, including tilting my head to one side, jumping up and down on one foot, standing on my head, tapping my head, opening my mouth up really wide, closing my nose and mouth while blowing gently, etc. After none of these worked, I went to the store and got a bottle of Swimmer's Ear and an Ear Wax removal kit.

I used these products all weekend, and my ear still has not unclogged. And it's REALLY clogged. This morning I answered my phone, and I couldn't even hear the person on the other end. I had to switch ears. I don't have any pain in the ear, it's just clogged.

Since this situation is obviously out of my area of expertise, I've scheduled an appointment with the doctor tomorrow afternoon.

I've been slowly acquainting myself with a band called The Bravery. I believe I've mentioned them at least once before here, but I've just recently came to really, really like another one of their songs. Not only does it have a great sound, but the lyrics are great. Here's a portion:

Sometimes I feel like I want to leave this place for good.
Under the ground, I'll live down there without a sound.

And never hear these hissing voices all the same.
I'll disappear, cause living makes me feel ashamed.

I must believe there's more above us and below.
I must believe, stranded with this bitch called hope.
It keeps me here when all I wanna do is go.
It keeps me here when all I wanna do is disappear.

If this is it, all we have and ever will.
If this is it, time is running out, I'm standing still.
I leave today, cause there's nothing left to keep me here.
I'll fade away, I'll turn my back and disappear.

Ow. My head hurts. There are days when I have scripting problems that are fun to figure out and the solutions come easily. Then, there are days like today. Every creative bit of scripting I do either isn't working or isn't doing what I need it to do. It gets annoying, because I don't particularly like spending all morning trying to figure out one scripting problem. On the other hand, it *is* quite gratifying when I finally do come up with a solution.

There's not really any point to that little story, but I do have another one for you. Ever since I first heard the song "Hate Me" by Blue October, I have taken a liking to the band. I started out just downloading that song, of course, but then a little later got the entire album. And I liked it, there's some good stuff on Foiled. I learned recently that the band has in fact been around since the mid-1990's, so I decided to see if I could find any of their earlier stuff.

I searched around, and I found an album called "One Day Silver, One Day Gold" by Blue October. Cool! So I downloaded it. I loaded the album onto my Zune, and today one of the songs came up in my playlist for the first time. (Hey, it's an 8GB Zune, it took awhile.) But the song didn't sound like Blue October. It didn't sound like them at all.

I went on Wikipedia and read about the band, and looked at their discography. The album I had downloaded was not listed. By this point I was thoroughly confused, so I searched on the name of the album. Turns out it is by a band by the name of Blue October UK, and the UK part of the band's name isn't listed on the title of the album nor on any of the tracks. And let me tell ya, Blue October the American rock band sounds a HELL of a lot different from Blue October the UK elecrosynth band. My ears are bleeding now.

Now, for those of you calling me an idiot for making such a mistake, look at these two album covers. Do you see any indication that one Blue October is a different band from the other?

I thought not.

And now I go back to my scripting headache.

***Edit: I just noticed that I posted this without a title. I didn't know I could do that! That saves me, like, 5 seconds of thinking up witty titles when I don't want to.

And the current threat level is...

One of the several reasons I enjoy working in my office is the dress code. We're allowed to wear jeans, t-shirts, tennis shoes, etc. Given the hours that we are sometimes required to work, the management feels we should be as comfortable as possible. This is good, because I hate dressing up. If I had to wear a shirt and tie to work every day, I would probably hang myself with the tie. Or at least rip off all my clothes and jump out of a 4th floor window.

Now, while most days for us are considered what is known as "casual attire", there are occasions where we are visited by current or potential customers. In these instances, the dress code is increased to "business casual", which translates to no jeans, no tennis shoes, and no t-shirts. But a shirt and tie is not required.

Today is one of those days.

I like to break down our dress code levels into a system similar to the homeland security alert system.

Green - Casual. Everything is fine. You can look like a slob. Maybe you should febreeze those jeans you wore yesterday, they still look fine.

Yellow - Business casual. A potential customer of minor importance must be visiting. Get out the comfy boot-like black shoes and the army pants that techincally AREN'T jeans so they are acceptable attire.

Orange - Business. Shirt and tie are required, but no suit. I'm going to be uncomfortable all fucking day.

Red - Business formal. Suit is required. You can bet the customer visiting is a multi-million dollar acccount. This is what sick days are for.

Sometimes it's better to just keep your mouth shut.

Random Noob: HELLO EVERYONE!!!!!!!
Me: Try pressing the caps lock key.
Random Noob: O THANKS!!!!! IT'S SO MUCH EASIER TO TYPE NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Me: Oh fuck me sideways.

Happy New Year!

I really have nothing to talk about, but I figured I would wish you all a Happy New Year before it was, ya know, February and stuff. Heh.

So I got a whole bunch of gift cards for Best Buy that I need to use. I've already bought a new headset, but that hardly put a dent in it. I'm thinking that along with Seinfeld Seasons 7-8, I'm going to buy a Zune. I've been too lazy to burn new CDs for myself to take to work lately, so maybe a new gadget will get me in gear so I'm not listening to same shit over and over again at my desk.