Lesson in Latin

Today is (was?) my 17th birthday. Yay me!

I'm tired and unfortunately have a Latin SAT 2 to  study for. Blargh. Thankfully IFC read my mind (as TV just loves me in general) and decided to play Life of Brian, which has a truly hilarious -- and helpful! -- scene in which Brian's Latin is corrected by a Roman official...



This scene is funny but especially so when you've experienced this for yourself. Latin is awesome but when you're a first year student who never was properly taught the mechanics of ENGLISH, let alone some archaic dead language, it's a pain. Imperatives and locatives and indicatives and datives...blah.

Sed iam, eo facere meum laborem. (But now, I am going to do my work.) Lame that I have to work on my birthday.

I think I'm just going to read my brand spanking new copy of Freedom by Jonathan Franzen instead. Tee-hee. :P

Relevant Things Going On in My Life Right Now #5

[Note: images aren't working for me at the moment. Sorry. Sad face.]

I haven't written a post in awhile-ish. Sorry. Lazy. I also haven't written one of these kinds of posts in a LONG time. But now I am. Aren't you lucky?

Today I got a Mew and now I am quite confident that I will become the greatest Pokemon master EVER. If you have HeartGold or SoulSilver then get on the Mystery Gift right now and download Mew! Do it! Now! Right now! But then please come back and read the rest of the post...

Which starts now!:

• 30 Rock Live: This is major and I probably should have written a review, but I didn't and oh well. Did you see it? Oh, excellent? Did you love it? Gasp! Me too! It was great and I enjoyed it immensely. It had a series finale kind of vibe but it was a fun experiment regardless. Although I think maybe this should have been the series finale -- not now, of course! Years from now, they should have done this episode. But whatever, I enjoyed it now. I didn't get to see the West Coast version but luckily someone has compiled a video of the differences between the two. I'm not sure which one I like better; they're both pretty amazing. Maybe the East Coast version, because I'm biased:
   
• Justin Bieber's autobiography: If you can even call it that. It's even more hilarious than I would have thought it'd be, though. Choice line: “There are lots of things I really like besides girls. Like pizza. And pranking. And CHUCK NORRIS.” Obviously this thing was ghost-written when I was in middle school. Biebs has been ready for this for years.
• The long tracking shot from Atonement: I loved the book but wasn't as big of a fan of the movie. I especially conked out during the Dunkirk scenes; unfortunately that meant that I missed on this very, very long tracking shot. I think tracking shots are the absolute coolest; this one especially! Watch it here.
• Cathy is over: Y'know, she definitely is a ton like Liz Lemon. "Chocolate, chocolate, chocolate! Ack!" Love it. People always complained about how whiny and annoying Cathy was but I always kind of liked it. I recently watched the EMMY AWARD-WINNING animated special (in which Cathy is voiced by Pepper Ann!) and I actually liked it a lot. It's sad that it seems like the newspaper comics industry is sort of dying out; there isn't anything new coming in and older things are dying out. I wonder what will happen.
• Songs from commercials: I usually don't listen to songs that I heard first on commercials because it's hard to disassociate them with the commercials, but I've been listening a lot to "All Summer" from a recent Converse commercial (that actually creeps me the heck out) and "Blogspot" (BLOGSPOT OH EM GIZZLE) by Paul and the Patients from a Target commercial. They're both really good in their own right and I think that the visuals in the commercials don't distract me from the songs. (Also, if I hear songs that I already know in commercials or in Sears like I did yesterday then I actually want to listen to them more. Weird, isn't it? I heard "Fools" by the Dodos on a beer commercial and it made me want to listen to the song again. And I heard "Fables," also by the Dodos, in Sears yesterday and got super-excited. It's super-exciting!
• Friday night's episode of Freaks and Geeks: Please let me continue to live in my little bubble where this show still airs weekly, okay. There are only 2 episodes left for IFC to show and it makes me a little sad, especially since yesterday's episode was so good. You can watch it in many a part starting here.
• Sweaters: This is random and irrelevant (UH OH) but I love sweaters. That is all.

Such is life. Life goes on. Things like that. Now, back to looking at my kitty. Whoopee!

Laborin' on That There "No Laborin' Day"

Please press play. This song is the non-sensical and largely irrelevant soundtrack to this post. Also, I just stinking love this song. This is, in my opinion, THE best Killers song. "Read My Mind" is even better than "Mr. Brightside." Yes, it is.

So a couple of similarly irrelevant things:

• I got a new iPod! YAY! It's a 16GB Product Red nano. One of the older ones, thank you very much. Those new ones are ugly as sin.
• School starts tomorrow and I am STILL doing homework. I haven't put any of my stuff together, either. And, like, oh my gawd, you guys! I DON'T KNOW WHAT I'M GOING TO WEAR! This is veering into cutting it dangerously close. I may be doomed. Tell me I am not doomed. This is supposed to be my senior year and I have never been this unprepared ever. Perhaps there is a correlation! 

(Click for bigger.) Uh-oh.

Look! I am continuing to procrastinate by writing this largely sans-point post! Sacre bleu! What is going on here? What is happening to me? Why am I incapable of staying on task? Must...complete...Spanish homework...without...posting clips of high school related things okay I am totally going to post clips of high school related things god I hate everything

HIGH SCHOOL RELATED THINGS!:

Ferris Bueller's Day Off is easily my favorite high school movie ever. It's also one of my favorite movies ever, period.



We've been watching Freaks and Geeks on IFC all summer. It's amazing. Here's the best part from the episode they showed on Friday. (The Spanish subtitles are unintentionally helping me sweat even more vigorously and worry even more about my still incomplete Spanish homework!)




Rushmore is another movie that is awesome. Doesn't Jason Schwartzman look like a completely different person now? HE REALLY DOES. Don't you dare disagree with me! You know I can't defend my opinions!



Okay, I think that's enough. You've probably had to listen to "Read My Mind" three times now. Not that  that's a problem, of course! I'd recommend you listen to it about 7 more times before you force yourself to turn if off so you can go do your evil Spanish homework.

Wish me luck at school tomorrow, similarly school-bound readers and confused but sympathetic parents! Be seeing you!

You'll find somebody you can blame, and you'll follow the creek that runs out to the sea, and you'll find the peace of the Lord.

Guten tag! That's German. See? You just learned something. Blogs can be educational!

Here's something else I'll be teaching you about: The Middle East.

Surprised? Well, don't be, because I'm not talking about that Middle East, I'm talking about the little band from Australia.

No, please don't leave! This will be awesome, I promise you! Well, maybe not awesome, but whatever! Just listen!

I was watching IFC recently, and they've been airing a lot of clips from South By Southwest, which is in Arizona, I believe? New Mexico? (Oh! Texas. Thanks, Wikipedia.) Everyone on the Internetz seems interested in SXSW, but I wasn't. I didn't give a crud about SXSW because just thinking about all of those sweaty pretentious audiophiles screaming the lyrics to their favorite Radiohead song (even though they're actually watching Broken Social Scene play) in one cramped place made me feel terribly uncomfortable.

But then they showed this video:

And immediately SXSW had won me over. Although, really, they only deserve partial credit, if even that: it was the Middle East that I liked. And it was IFC that brought them to my 32" HD Sony Bravia television (all my Bravia bros., say "Heeeey!" And then don't ever say "Heeeey!" again).

The song is called "Blood." Yes, "Blood" by the Middle East. It is far less violent than it sounds. In fact, it's pretty melancholy, but above all else, it's..."beautiful." That's a word I rarely use, unless I'm talking about my cat. Man, my cat's the best.

Anyway, while watching that video of "Blood", the harmonizing just put me someplace else. The combination of the instruments create this wonderful ambiance that I just got lost in. I stared at the screen, my eyes watering from keeping them pried open, my ears throbbing from how high up I had turned up the volume (only to 65!).

The lyrics are the best part. Please, won't you read them with me?:

Older brother, restless soul, lie down
lie for a while with your ear against the earth
and you'll hear your sister sleep talking
say "your hair is long but not long enough to reach
home to me
but your beard
someday might be"

And she'll wake up in a cold sweat on the floor
next to a family portrait drawn when you were four
and beside a jar of two cent coins that are no good no more
she'll lay it aside

Older father, weary soul, you'll drive
back to the home you made on the mountainside
with that ugly, terrible thing
those papers for divorce
and a lonely ring
a lonely ring
sit on your porch
and pluck your strings

And you'll find somebody you can blame
and you'll follow the creek that runs out into the sea
and you'll find the peace of the Lord.

Grandfather, gentle soul, you'll fly
over your life once more before you die
since our grandma passed away
you've waited for forever and a day
just to die
and someday soon
you will die

It was the only woman you ever loved
that got burnt by the sun too often when she was young
and the cancer spread and it ran into her body and her blood
and there's nothing you can do about it now

Please don't lie to me and tell me that you don't imagine anything while reading that. How could you not instantly be filled up with all of these different thoughts and emotions? I can't be overselling this, can I? I can't be the only one who thinks this is "the bomb?"

Just look at the cover of their EP, conveniently located to your right, which is called The Recordings of the Middle East. I think it encapsulates "Blood" pretty well, or, at least, what I see in my mind when I hear it. Also, the colors are really nice. Look at 'em.

One of the other songs on the EP that I really like is "The Darkest Side." Its lyrics are kind of overdramatic ("It's the darkest side of my heart that dies when you come to me") but it just sounds so good. On that song, too, they do a lot of cool harmonizing. (See also: "Beleriand.")

Regardless of whether or not you're interested in SXSW, and I must admit that I still care very little about it, I implore you to check out this band. I assure you that you won't regret it. Just try to ignore the fact that their drummer is a dead-ringer for current Weezer bassist Scott Shriner. If you haven't watched the video I posted above already, then please check that out, too. It's quite nice, and is every bit as good as the studio version.

Here's a download of said studio version: "Blood"

You can buy the EP from Amazon here. It's also on iTunes, but I'm pretty mad at Apple right now so you can find it yourself there if you have to. (Don't ask why I'm mad at them. Just, don't. Seriously, I know you're going to want to now, but don't even try it. I'm warning you!)