Pearl Jam is releasing their new album called Backspacer on September 20 (a Sunday), which is less than 2 weeks away. Of course I’m excited!!! The video for the first single, “The Fixer”, has been on iTunes and Youtube for a couple of weeks now and I can’t stop listening to it.
Earlier this year they were saying this album could end up sounding a lot different than their other ones. Judging by the few songs I’ve heard so far, that could be true. Eddie’s experience with making the Into the Wild soundtrack may have had a little influence on the way it sounds. They made it sound like the lyrics on this album were more straightforward, without all the multiple meanings. I like that. Simplicity can be good.
Take a look at the video. They’re getting so old now :).
I’ve been thinking about going to one of the music festivals this summer. All the ones that I saw near here were happening either a little too early (May/June) or a little too late (October). Plus, the lineups were pretty good, but there were only one or two artists that I really wanted to see at each event.
A week or two ago I found out that Pearl Jam was well on their way to finishing a new album and were rumored to be going on tour and also headlining Austin City Limits Music Festival this year. The ACL people didn’t want to confirm that Pearl Jam would be there, but they said it was the worst kept secret around. I went to the website and saw the bands they had confirmed so far. I put that with Pearl Jam and I decided that I need to book a hotel room right away, which I did. The official lineup came out around midnight this morning. It is great!
Pearl Jam
Dave Matthews Band
Beastie Boys
Ben Harper and Relentless7
John Legend
Mos Def
The B-52s
Sonic Youth
Coheed and Cambria (don’t know much about them, interested in hearing them)
The Virgins (a band I recently discovered)
Lily Allen (I keep hearing her name, don’t know any songs)
When I was in college I downloaded a lot of stuff from the Internet using file sharing programs. I hope that saying this here isn’t going to get me in any trouble 🙂 . I downloaded music that way if I wanted to get only one song instead of the full album. I downloaded movies and TV shows. I even downloaded games where you had to get 30-something zip files, unzip them all, and then run a program that would combine the pieces into 1 game.
Now that I have a full-time job and I’m making decent money, I don’t do that anymore. I don’t really have the time or patience. I don’t leave my computer running all the time. Even when I tried to leave it running more so that stuff could download, it would take days or even weeks for it to finish. Why wait hours for a TV show when I can pay $2 and download in less than half an hour or instantly if I’m streaming? Also, when I’m at work and a song pops into my head I’m not going to start up a file sharing program and look for it. I go to Amazon MP3 or iTunes and get it there. The only time I might make an exception is when I check all my legit sources (Amazon MP3, iTunes, Hulu, Netflix Watch Instantly, Xbox Live, DirecTV on Demand, etc) and still can’t find it. That’s pretty rare these days and if it’s a TV show I’ll delete as soon as I’m finished. I have reformed.
While I was in Jackson, I was thinking about some things I want to do in 2009. Maybe at the end of the year I’ll revisit the list and see how I did.
I want to go somewhere, probably over the summer. This year I took time off from work mostly for emergencies and when I wasn’t feeling well, but I never took time off for a vacation. I think that was part of the reason why I felt burnt out the last part of the year.
I want to watch all the DVDs in my collection that I haven’t seen plus the bonus features. I have so many DVDs that haven’t been opened. I want to go through all those this year. I’ve already done this for most of the TV shows I own, but not the movies. My collection is so small that I could probably do it this year.
I want to finish watching Babylon 5. I bought season 1 last Christmas, but didn’t finish watching it until the summer. I watched all 7 seasons of Buffy in 2 months, so there’s no reason I can’t finish the other 4 seasons of B5 in 12 months.
Once again I want to begin exercising again.
I want to finish organizing my mp3 collection so they can go onto my iPod. For all the random mp3s I have collected over the years, I’ve been editing the ID3 information. Since I got my iPod in October, I’ve slowly made it to the Ls. This is annoying, but it’ll be worth it to me
I want to reply to everyone that I’m following on Twitter. I follow a lot of people that I don’t ever talk to. I’m going to make an effort to talk to more of them.
I want to start back cooking. I’m tired of eating at the same food places over and over again.
Christmas wasn’t as great this year as the past few years. People just didn’t have money to buy gifts and I just wasn’t feeling the spirit of the season. What did I get?
Erykah Badu – New Amerykah Part One (4th World War)
Calvin Klein cologne and body wash
a nice shirt
another gift should be coming
I didn’t realize that people who I thought would be used to animals would react so badly to having a dog around. I guess they like the idea of me having a dog as long as they don’t have to deal with him in person. He had to stay cooped up in 1 room most of the time and he kept whining to get out. This might make going home difficult. It got better, but still. Maybe next year I’ll celebrate in my own home.
Anyway, it’s good to have 2 weeks off from work. I’ve been getting caught up on TV shows that I recorded, movies, and gaming. I’ve still got another week to go.
I did something that I used to think I would never do. I bought an iPod. I’ve changed my mind on it at least 3 times in the past couple of days, but I finally placed the order today.
I’ve gotten the idea of getting an mp3 player in my mind several times over the past few years, but I always change my mind. I really don’t need one. All the stuff I can do on an iPod I can do on other devices. I can even do it better on other devices. However, the iPod has a convenience factor and a coolness factor. Although I am rarely in situations where I have to use the iPod, I’m sure I will WANT to use it once I have it.
At one point I thought that I would buy a Zune if I bought any mp3 player. I’m kinda anti-Apple lately. I changed my mine on getting a Zune after a friend of mine got an iPod. I’ve already ripped all of my CDs to my hard drive using iTunes. I still don’t understand why people get so excited over iTunes. It is something awful. I’ll have to get used to it I guess. I’ve also started organizing the mp3s I already had. I can see myself obsessing over this for many hours, but it’ll be great to be able to listen to any of my songs whenever I want.
I’m excited about finally making it into the 21st century in this area. It should be here by the end of the week. I think I’m going to buy some accessories today.
I buy songs from iTunes every once in a while. Sometimes a band that I like will release songs exclusively on iTunes. Sometimes I’m at work and I get an urge to hear a song right away and iTunes seemed like the best option in that situation. Now I think I’m going to start using Amazon MP3 when I want to download a song if it’s available there. Why? Because it has no DRM. With iTunes I can only listen to it on one of the 5 computers that are authorized on my account. I don’t even have an iPod. If I get it from Amazon MP3, I can listen to it on any device I want to that plays MP3s. Also, I don’t really like the iTunes software. I REALLY don’t like it.
Amazon just came out with a new widget that you can put on your website that allows people to preview songs. The owner of the website gets a small percentage of each sale. I decided to try it out.
I have had a nice, relaxing Christmas Break. I spent more time in Jackson than I have in a long time. What did I get?
Blue Dragon
Blue Dragon strategy guide
Serenity Found: More Unauthorized Essays on Joss Whedon’s Firefly Universe
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End
a bottle of cologne is coming (I think I asked for Prada for Men)
The Pearl Jam fan club Christmas single came in the mail today. We usually don’t get them until January or February, but the fan club people did say they were trying to get the singles out ealier this year. Once again, I won’t be able to listen to it right away because I don’t own a record player.
Tonight I’m finishing up my annual viewing of The Lord of the Rings with The Return of the King. I’m not in the mood to go out and party. This will be a lot of fun.
Nice being back in New Orleans…taking in the city…good music…Pumpkins were awesome…won money at the casino…lots of walking…muscles still sore…stomach still upset…picture with Wolverine…good time.
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