Hour 2, I Mean, Hour 14: Counting Is Hard

So, the past two hours have basically consisted of me preparing to clear out space on my computer so I can record vids tomorrow without fear of using up memory, and trying to rope people into going to the zoo with me.  My Facebook status is currently:

“

Bobby Lang

wants to know if anyone wants to skip class/job/WoW to go to the zoo today. There may be babies and the stealing thereof.”

Speaking of which, that latter topic will be discussed at greater length in two hours.  Anywho, my first request to go to the zoo was denied, because apparantly one needs money to survive, and the lottery isn’t as rigged as it used to be, so now many people are turning to the unthinkable: jobs.  Or at least the searching thereof.

“Thereof” is like tax evasion: a little goes a long way, but too much spoils the soup.

Anywho, I plan to watch Heroes and Dollhouse, drink more Vault, eat some cookies, organize more files, and harass more high schoolers to go to the zoo (and/or commit Grand Theft Infant) with me.

Da Rules: Music: Addendum

Here’s some music that has come into my possession after I posted the previous list of music on the Insomnia playlist!

“Bad Guy” by The Basilisk In Your Pasta
The normally acoustic French wizard rock band rocks out with the electric guitar in this ode to Snape.

Treestylin’ by Big Whompy
The debut EP of the rap spin-off band from The Whomping Willows is probably the best rap from the point of view of a magical tree that you will ever hear.

“Power of Love” by The Cruciatus Curse feat. The Curse Breakers
When you take the dark techno/hip-hop vibe of TCC, and infuse it with the stellar vocals of TCB, you not only get the chance for ironic naming, you get the first really great collab track of the year.

“Dark Lord”, “Gato’s Revolution”, “Gato’s Song” by Dawlish and the Archies
Oops, my band’s here again.  The first song’s backing track was on the previous list, and even my vocals can’t completely mar its catchiness.  The other two tracks are remixes of a great theme from the game Chrono Trigger DS, which I may have mentioned once or twice on the blog…

What Witches Want by Gred and Forge
Jarrod so completely captures the spirit and energy of the twins that for a long time I actually thought it was two people!  Their EP features guest vocals from some of the “headliners” of wizard rock, and is just a very fun album to listen to.

“21st Century Breakdown [Demo]” by Green Day
The first new song from Green Day since American Idiot is a tad disappointing, but only in that you realize that it really has been, like, 5 to 6 years!  The actual song is fine enough, and has enough guitars to keep me awake.

“Before OWLs” by Gryffindor Common Room Rejects
GCR2 really surprised me in their debut EP.  I had previously heard only one of their songs, and it was a wonderful piece of overlapping vocals and acoustic guitar work.  However, most of their music is of a synthpop bent.  This song is very bouncy and fun.

“It’s Too Hot”, “Accio Deathly Hallows”, “Obama Llama Song” by Hank Green
The musical half of the internet superstar duo the Vlogbrothers, Hank Green has made nerdy music with such sheer enthusiasm that you can’t help but grinning.
“The Economics of the Wizarding World Don’t Make Sense” by Harry and the Potters
The punkest of songs from their punkest of albums makes nitpicking fun again.

“On Thestral, We Ride”, “So This Is It (Taking Off That Locket)” by the Hermione Crookshanks Experience
“On Thestral, We Ride” recounts a relatively scary and sad event, but somehow makes it upbeat and hopeful, with soaring melodies and masterful composition.  The second song is basically a power ballad sung by Hermione, and thusly wins at life.  If, you know, songs were living organisms.

“Krum”, “Dumbledore Is Gay (And That’s Ok)” by Justin Finch-Fletchley And The Sugar Quills
The lyrics and music are both simple and catchy, a potent combination.

“I Wish You’d Be My Witch” by The Mudbloods
The Mudbloods are often great, but often very lyrical and retrospective.  This song manages to get just poppy enough to get on this playlist.

“The Copywrong Song” by Song by Mike Corb. Produced by Luke Rowell/Disasteradio
Yes, that is what is in the Artist field in iTunes, and I hadn’t noticed that until just now, and I am keeping the alphabetical order.  Anywho, the opening synth theme of this protest song is very catchy, and the makers of this song have released free remixing packs, to fit in with the message, so props to them.

Later today will be my personal history with sleep deprivation.  Happy Mardi Gras!

Why There’s Been A Drought Of Posts

Actually, before I clear that up, there’s something I don’t understand.  In “drought” the gh is silent.  Yet, in “draught” the gh turns into an f.  Why?  How does adding or taking away an “o” make that much of a difference?!?  I’m so distressed I’m using multiple pieces of punctuation!!!!!!!!!! (the sure sign of an insane mind)

But the reason why I have been so lacking is this:

Well, not that specifically.  That was me at the Portland Freeze, where roughly six to seven hundred people showed up and and descended upon “Portland’s Playground” as channel 8 keeps calling it, and held the same position for 5 minutes.  My position was yelling at my Nintendo DS, but over time, my jaws started to really hurt, so I got more of a zoned out look than an enraged one.  But still.

Anywho, the real reason why I haven’t been posting is this:

HOLYBALLSTHISGAMEISGOOD

As the caption says, HOLY BALLS THIS GAME IS GOOD.  It takes everything you would hate about JRPG’s – the random battles, the turn based combat, and either throws it out the window or tweaks into something that is still amazingly fresh today – mostly because no one seems to have learned from it.  Instead of strictly turned based combat, each character has a “timer”, which fills up depending on their speed stat, and when the timer is full, they get to make a move.  But you have to be quick in making decisions, because enemies have timers too, and won’t hesitate to attack.

Also, the story and writing is (are?) impeccable (which is a tad confusing word – the story can’t be pecked?  Why would birds be trying to eat a video game’s story anyways?), and it has an update translation over the original, some new fully animated cutscenes, and some other extras.  Also, one of the best scores in all of video game history.

However, my procurement of this videoelectronic game from a local entertainment reseller does not spell all doom and gloom, mostly because it is an inanimate object, and thus, it doesn’t have a mother, and thus, no one ever taught it the alphabet song.  It’s a very sad story.

Ahem.  Anywho.  The silver lining of this game is that this is another weapon I can use in my fight against insomnia, which I believe may happen next week.  Speaking of which, sometime later today I’ll have up a schedule for the next few posts, so I can hopefully post more often, and possibly yet another post, a “real” one, probably explaining the rules surrounding liquids and the drinking thereof.

Addendum: You probably can’t tell it from the pictures, but the day of the Portland Freeze was also the first day it snowed this winter.  That means two things – first, that the Freeze caused a true freeze, which I find mildly humorous, and second, IT WAS REALLY FLOBBERWORMIN’ COLD.

Da Rules: Music: 2 Unlimited – Green Day

“Ah, music. A magic beyond all we do here!”
-Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore

Time for the first post explaining the rules!  First off, we’re going to tackle the issue of music.  Music has long been recognized as a key weapon in the fight against sleep, and as such, I’m going to set a “budget” of time for me to listen to certain songs.  You see, it’s not enough to just stay up for 72 straight hours.  Any fool with loud enough music, bright lights, and some surgical needles can do that.  I want to make it challenging.

So, I have compiled a playlist (entitled “Insomnia”) of the bounciest, danciest songs that I have.  For every 24 hours, I can only spend 8 hours listening to the songs on that playlist.  I will compute this by resetting the play counts for all the songs at the very beginning of my sojourn, and then resetting it again every 24 hours.  After the 8 hours are used up, I can only listen to music from another playlist (entitled “Limit Break” – it’s a Final Fantasy pun/reference) until I’ve hit the next day.

So, for your reading pleasure, I have typed up that list of songs, and appended to each a quick note of explanation, or some such.  Also, please note that titles in quotation marks are song titles.  Title in italics are album titles, and thus, all songs in that album are part of the playlist.  Also, some entries have relevant links in them, so be on the lookout for that.