My Top 5 Songs

" 'Tis the season"...for what, I don't know.  Another holiday season.  BAH.  I just don't handle well this time of the year.  My emotions are thrown back and forth, from literally disgust and hatred one minute to beign infected with joy and a belief that good times are ahead. After something like 3 years of this stupid blog, all my readers (zero and counting) know I'm just a basket case by nature. I am feeling OK, actually.  I am doing well in social situations, saving money, making acquaintances, and letting things roll off my back after smoldering for a short time, instead of letting things fester and eat me alive. Well, like last year, I get very, very...."eager" for physical experiences.  This happens to me around Christmas time usually, going back to my teens.  I think because it's cold (which makes me want to get physically close to someone, I guess), and usually a festive time for most people...there really is not a good reason, I g

Better late than never, as I lay here dying...from food asphyxiation/intoxication...in other words, it's Thanksgiving night and I am questioning my existence when feeling like shit from...eating.  I mean, a basic carbon life form function, and it makes me sick (not sick like I'm vomiting, but sick as in languid, tired, sleepy but not enough to sleep). It's a holiday - pass granted.  Diet starts tomorrow! Life continues, and is going well.  I still have the doldrums, but I guess I am doing what people need to do, in lieu of marriage and having children - expand your horizons, try out different things, stay busy.  The song from 36 Crazyfists hits #1.  A band I never heard of until this song, which is about 2 years old now.  I just never tired of it, and it remained on my youtube favorites, and when I tired of other songs, "Also Am I" got closer attention.  What a simply straighforward, kick ass song. The new entry is an EDM type song.  It has a catchy, brig

Well, just like October of 2015, I am very late posting for this month. Been busy, as usual.  Again....thank God graduate school is done, because all this stuff keeping me busy now are things that are PLEASURABLE, low stress, and FUN.... I do like my field of study, but it is a challenge.  I remain on vacation from it, until after Thanksgiving, at which time I will try to network, keep up with the industry, and who knows - maybe connect with a great employment opportunity. I love the autumn.   The cooler weather is a nice break.  I have fallen out of workout mode, and feel like a lump on a log.  But I AM spending time working on guitar and the arts, basically.  I hope to see maybe one play every 5-6 weeks, and take cues on acting.   Acting class chugs along - started a few weeks ago.  I have mixed feelings on it - it is something like 15 weeks long, and expensive.  Thus far, I question on the length of it (FIFTEEN WEEKS!?!) and whether the instructor's method is help

OK, one week into the month, and I'm posting for my throngs of afficionados.  Not bad - normally I'm 2 weeks late, or longer. Love the autumn. Well, it has its plus and minuses.  Big minus - the university people come back.  I live in a great American city with a huge university presence - and they pretty much dominate the better parts of this city.   And they are usually fucking stupid in public spaces - driving, on the bus, anywhere.  Look, I was dumb too at that age.  I did not think ahead, I felt like it was my right to be afforded an explanation for everything, and to be catered to....I might be hard on myself and maybe I was not THAT bad.  Even at that age, I had an excellent work ethic learned from my parents.  But, yea, I was at times a dick.   But an independent thinker, at least.  I was never a herd follower, and usually was alone most of the time.  Fine by me! I am not an angry old man.  It's just that when you are a vast minority, you know, you tend to

Before you blink, the summer will have passed by.  And it's been pretty good. I made time to get away for a few days, have been bike riding, planning ahead for acting, and so on. Life has been OK lately.  I am stressed from chronic neck pain and stiffness, and the headaches that result from my trying to work out the stiffness.  I will get that checked in due time. In the meantime, here is my Top 5 for August.  The song from 36 Crazyfists had been on my list of current songs for quite a while.  The competition from hard rock/metal songs has been tough the last year or more, because of Mastodon in large part.  Anyway, welcome, 36 Crazyfists, to a song tracking blog that has zero readers!  They have been around since 1994 - I only heard of them from this song, "Also Am I".   Great song.....I'm listening to them now via youtube, a song called "Slit Wrist Theory", which is pretty damn good, too! That is all - I actually have an audition for what sounds lik

Can't be any more of a procrastinator, as August is just days away. I did not receive my diploma in the mail, but the final grade is in, and I actually did pretty well - a B-. At one point in the semester I was expecting to finish with a D!    So to acquire a B- grade in that fucking abysmally difficult class?  AWESOME! YAY ME! I have been working hard (at work), but also finally getting out to enjoy things like bowling and such.  Well, I haven't yet picked up the guitar to learn (or RElearn) stuff, but that is coming soon. I have been actually so happy for a while now.  I have often mentioned in this stupid blog about my bouts with periodic depression and all that.   Moreso, it's sadness, and not really depression anymore.  I attribute that to my own self-education about depression and anxiety, and my motives to deal with it. All with no drugs...counseling I might have been able to use, but any psych drugs? Nope.  Not that I'm a scientologist or

Late this month....this should be the last month that I slack like this... BECAUSE I AM DONE WITH SCHOOL.....forever! I am now equipped with a Master's Degree in a particular sub-area of Civil Engineering, so I guess in a way, I am a "somebody", even though I do not have my professional license. I don't want to THINK about advancing the career, possibly for a better paying job or something like that.  I just am tired of starting again....like the song "Best of You" by the Foo Fighters says. It's OK - the current status quo isn't bad.   By the end of the year, I will think about possibly looking for a better job, and studying up on things to maybe take the PE exam in 2017 or 2018.   But for now, I just want to relax, enjoy some things, possibly try to build some semblance of a social life...maybe get laid some time, which would be great.  Last winter, I actually did get some action.  I hated the idea of an online type of hookup thing - but

Late again this month.  Was just tied up with this nightmare class. It finished, but I have to complete some work to get a grade.   So my freedom is delayed for a bit. I am looking forward to it, but not really.  I am strangely depressed, and can't stand most people around me. Mastodon with another #1, way more than a year since I first got that album.  Borgeous is still hanging on for the tenth week!  The Church bows out of the top spot, but what a run for that song.   I love all these songs, and I love charting them for the future.  Wow - ten years ago was 2006.  A decade seems like...a couple years ago. MAY 2016 1.  "Tread Lightly", by Mastodon 2,1, 4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ja8cXdo5fA 2. "Cirice", by Ghost -, 2, 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0Ao4t_fe0I 3.  "Vanishing Man", by The Church 1, 1, 7 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ul13hip5LOM 4.  "Sick Like Me", by In This Moment, 4, 4, 3 https://www.you

Am I eligible for sainthoood?  There must have been at least three times a miracle prevented me from ripping their head off with all the noise they make.  Apartment living at some point becomes not a bohemian joy but a drudgery. But yes, it has its advantages. Busy with school - one more fucking month left of grad school.  I am eager....so eager.... That is all.   Little interest in music as my chart shows - not a lot of movement for this month. APRIL 2016 1.  "Vanishing Man", by The Church 1, 1, 6 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ul13hip5LOM 2.  "Tread Lightly", by Mastodon 4, 2, 3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ja8cXdo5fA 3. "Come a Little Closer", by Cage the Elephant 2, 2, 5 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVYup3Qwh8Q 4. "Sick Like Me", by In This Moment, 4, 4, 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03X0B6u-AxM&list=RD03X0B6u-AxM 5.  "Wildfire", by Borgeous 5, 1, 9 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmZI7xFisHA

Just like last year, I am two weeks late for March's Top 5 entry.   I read what I wrote last  year - it makes me sad.  I haven't changed much since then. I know what it is - it's the stress of school.   I work very hard in my graduate classes (I am two months from graduating!) and its kept me from a lot of social contact.  Not that that would make me a happy person, but it helps soften my periods of depression, and gives me inner strength.  I am so busy this weekend (as I will be until this fucking class is over), so I will leave it at that. We'll see how I adjust to post-school life at the end of May!  I will be free of school and its worries for the first time in about 5 years.  And, I will be in a good living situation (the apartment), and with a job that is tolerable (for the most part)....all in all, a situation where all departments of my life are at least acceptable, for the first time since probably around 1991 - seriously, that long.   I've

OK, my final class for graduate school is...a bear. I am struggling, but persevering. Besides that, things are going OK.  I am feeling good physically - I am working out, not indulging too much in chocolate or sweets (my kryptonite), and taking care of my back.  I have to see a doctor next week for a persistent problem in my throat, though - it's like a cold, but without a sore throat or other symptoms.  I only have a restrictive passageway at times (trouble swallowing food), and phlegm.  Isn't that just sexy?  But it's not a cold or a virus or anything - antibiotics don't work. That's it for now - gotta hit the books. Music.... Late this month, but that's OK. I am pretty sure the monthly Top 5 the way it looks now is how it would have had I updated it at the beginning of February.   Another entry by Mastodon!  This may not be the last one (it is currently the fourth) from the album.  There could be at least one more Top 5er.  Mastodon total

Well, this month, I am on time, for once.  (warning - there may be objectionable language below)... Christmas just sucks. I can't stand a sibling of mine, who just wrecks the joy with his pompous attitude. We are middle aged, mind you - but he has been this way his whole life. Can you imagine being yelled at by someone who is irritated at something you said, that they do not agree with? If this were the way he was, fine...but it's NOT - he is just like that to his family, but probably very nice to everyone else.  I guess he is really a total pussy. What - is this guy in elementary school?  Because that is what he sounds like - and everyone let's him get away with it.  It's basically bullying - and it's disarming, and embarrassing.  I want to tell him to fuck off, and that he is a ridiculous asshole who acts this way because he feels we are all weaker than he, but can't be this way towards others.   I really hate people like this - I mean, you know some NF