blakerson.com

So today is another day where my system of day and night (where it's not 'tomorrow at midnight kekeke') works to my advantage, because I'll be celebrating my 21st birthday a day early. Tonight at midnight, they'll start letting me into bars (because it's the next day! haw!), so I'm going with a couple of friends to do the 6th Street nonsense tonight so that I can spend the rest of the time celebrating with my all-aged friends.

But as far as I'm concerned, this birthday hasn't even started yet and it's already annoying as hell. Everyone's telling me that I have to drink until my liver falls out and to 'Enjoy it! You only turn 21 once!' Everyone wants to drink with me, but separately, which would involve something like 80 drinks, going by the number of people I've invited to my party next weekend. On the stingy end of the spectrum, my mom's called me 3 times today alone to remind me to take it easy, and that UT sent me a birthday card saying "Happy birthday - don't die - here's a pamphlet - Call 911 if you are unconscious."

Everyone, please, just shut the fuck up. This is the day where I get to call the shots, right? Stop telling me what to do and not to do. I'm going out for a drink tonight and spending the next two weekends chillin' with people I like, knocking back Jack and Cokes and that's what I call a celebration. So please. Just stop.

Catch up on all this for the holiday season:

Broken Social Scene - I've just started listening to this group with a cult following, but it's the band that Leslie Feist belongs to. Yeah, that Feist. It's definitely different but in the kind of sense that feels right at home to the soundtrack to movies like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind or Lost in Translation. Think Death Cab for Cutie, Postal Service (without the suck, and yes I know it's a Death Cab side project), and so on.

The Samurai Champloo soundtrack - It's really pretty good. I was always confused while watching the series, because it felt like I kept hearing the same 5 tracks used over and over again in every episode, but sure enough, the 4-album soundtrack set is chock-full of familiar beats. For fans of the shows or some Tribe Called Quest -style hip-hop sounds, it's worthy of a listen.

John Mayer Trio - Try! John Mayer Trio - So awesome. This is not John Mayer as you know him. Not the guy responsible for Your Body is a Wonderland, or Daughters, or even 3x5. Not even close. This is one part early Clapton, one part B.B. King / Stevie Ray Vaughan / Buddy Guy, and one more part Mayer's self-styled guitar solos that you've heard if you've ever heard the man play live. All in all, it's blues but with a nice infusion of fresh, young blood. Mayer's voice even shifts in style, ditching the relaxed baritone of his 3 studio albums for a forced, soulful, connected-to-his-guitar kind of sound that you'd expect from a blues veteran twice his age. If you only download one track off iTunes (where the album's sitting pretty at the top of the charts), make it Try or Gravity. But to get the full effect of where that singer-songwriter-your-ex-gf-likes has gone, get the whole album and full up your apartment with cigarette smoke so that maybe - just maybe - you'll feel like you're in the House of Blues with a worthwhile host for the night.

There's plenty more of this where it came from, and to keep up with my musical adventures, check the last.fm link to the right.

So I spent 6 days back in A-town to take a break from the insanity that has been school. I melted down last Monday during my presentation and basically had a caffeine-overdosed-crash right in the middle of it. I had spent the entire last week being wired as hell on espresso in preparation for that presentation, and it really bummed me out that I shot myself in the foot on it. So I drove home, ready to get in some quality rest time, and that's exactly what I got. I didn't go out much, instead wasting time indoors doing things like this:

-A family-less, turkey-less Thanksgiving. And it rocked. See, when Mom moved to the south side of town a few months ago, the new house came with a nifty grill built-in outdoors - and she's been anxious to use it. Since Mom hates the T-day traditions of family nonsense and turkey and stuffing, and I could care less, we threw it all out and busted out with the grill. The resulting feast was steak, chicken, salmon, and veggie kabobs, all grilled to perfection. Probably the best T-day meal I've ever had. I spent the next 48 hours:

-Watching football. I've really been converted into a true-blue college ball fan. Screw the NFL, but I'm decently keeping tabs on what's going on in the NCAA, mostly due to the semester I've had with these roommates of mine. I also:

-Finishing one of my two major papers. A draft at least, but that's the vast majority of the work on that one done. I'm starting the other one tomorrow and hopefully cranking that one out with the help of (just a little) espresso within the next two weeks. One of the fun parts of the weekend was:

-Looking at law schools. I went through all the propaganda I grabbed at the UT Law School Fair a couple weeks back, and I found that a lot of schools allow 'majors' (because law school still comes with specific areas of study) in technology, which is what I'm pretty sure I wanna do. After some propaganda reading, here's my short list, with Texas as a last-ditch backup: Harvard, Columbia, Stanford, Berkeley. It's a pretty ambitious list, but I'm really putting a lot of faith in my transcript and my LSAT score to maybe sell myself to these places. Here's what I didn't do in town:

-Go out. My apologies to everyone I missed out on quality time with, including everyone at Graham's party, Harsimar, and Andrea. I slept. A lot. In fact, even coffee couldn't keep me awake. But I'll be seeing alllll you guys come Christmas break.

I just found out I'm done on December 19th (wayyy late this year, UT scheduling change), so I'll be home probably on the 21st (after taking a few days to waste time in Austin - errr, go Christmas shopping) and staying until quite some time later in January.

I'm headed to A-town laaate Tuesday night and I'll be around at least through Saturday, if not Sunday. I've got a lot of things to do, like research and taking Mom car shopping, but I'll be available in the evenings. Let's chill.

Finally, someone started doing good ads for their Xbox360 projects (it comes out Tuesday!) and of all people, it's Sega. The Sega Labs site is technically one of the best sites I've ever seen, and the video presentation is top-notch. They blow stuff up. Go give it a shot.