for my non-letu folks. My reviewer didnt send me back a final edit of my shins review, so you shall have to suffer through the unedited draft. ooo hoooh.



The Shins are a retro band with '60s sound. They were formed in 1997 after lead singer James Mercer's previous band had ended. "Wincing the Night Away" is their newest album released in January 2007.

The Shins' quiet, retro sound was first introduced to a wide audience when their first hit "New Slang" was used in a McDonald's commercial and in Zach Braff's film "Garden State."

The follow-up album "So Says I" contained an ambitious array of great songs, expanding the band's repertoire while staying true to their distinctive "flower power" sound.

Some fans thought the band's continued success would mean a more commercially-appealing, attention-grabbing sound. The songs on "Wincing the Night Away," however, directly contradict this assumption and actually hearken back to the sounds of the band's earliest work. This is a quiet album with unassuming songs that reveal deeper beauty with repeated listening.

The album begins with the hushed synth scales of "Sleeping Lessons." The instruments quietly enter one-by-one, beginning the album with a humble tune that is yet very soothing. The electric guitars eventually arrive two minutes into the song, before it relaxes back into the perfect soundtrack for watching Lava Lamps.

The following song, "Australia," is an album highlight with its pleasant melody, banjo section, and echoing, bouncing guitars.

The first single, "Phantom Limb," has fascinating, though enigmatic lyrics. The chorus speaks of an alienated desire to be a part of someone's life, rather than simply watching it like a fly "skirt[ing] the hallway sides."

The song's video depicts a lavish grade school historical production, in which the band features prominently as musicians and actors. A tribe of South American natives presents gifts to a party of conquistadors, and drops dead after a casual handshake. A war ensues, an angel assists a band of lost settlers, and a young girl is set to be burned at the stake as the video fades. Even if the words do not mean anything, Mercer's enunciation blends perfectly into the song.

"Red Rabbits" has a spritely synth background, layered beneath a melancholy strings section during the bridge.

The album's closer, "A Comet Appears," sounds exactly like it could have come from their first album, showing how carefully the Shins have crafted a comfortable sound that is all their own.

To see some of the band's older videos and for tour information, visit their website at http://www.theshins.com/.

At the time of this writing, the band had not put the Phantom Limb video on their website, though it can be found at YouTube.com. In addition, a number of small, hidden videos can be found by playing with the band's rather mysterious home page.

Our Brit Lit presentation was about Darwinism. We thought it went well, and we did get an A.

Andrew was kind enough to take four very bad pictures, which is mostly the fault of my camera and the ambient lighting.



Sydney and I as a modern and then Victorian couple in a skit composed by the Dave. That's him off to the right as the waiter.



There's a snowy-bearded Annie on the right as Charles Darwin. And Miki as a frog! Wondahful.



Aaaaand there's Annie again, this time with Sydney in her supremely attractive shark suit. Too bad the picture is from the back. I'm sure Sydney must love this picture. :D



And yours truly, looking ragged and dumb and playing my part as a caveman. mehehe

It's over. That's the best part. The seniors in our group are going to write 5 journals, take the midterm next week, and then sit back and cruiiiiiise for the rest of the semester. It will be great.

We started a power suite blog. Here's the clicky and it's on my sidebar. I can take only a fraction of responsibility for what shows up there, as I account for only a fraction of All That Is the Power Suite.

The question of the day is, not, in fact, do you expect me to talk, but rather...

Would you have your forehead tatooed for a million dollars?

I think so.

It's Heritage weekend again! I went to Gregg County Airport for the first time ever yesterday to pick up some folks flying in. It's a real airport, except tiny.

The guys I was driving had a great time telling me how to lower the windows and turn on the defrost since I had never driven the vehicle before. Good times...

And now, random picture time. I took 6 whole pictures over the Christmas break and this is the best of them.



Dr. Watson has been showing us a video in Digital Literacy about How Art Made the World. It's interesting but our projector stinks so we can't actually see all the statues. Dr. Watson let the class out early, promising to have "a long talk" with the media folks.

There was one lonely previewer visiting our class, and I rather felt disappointed for her, that rather than hear the wondrous Dr. Watson lecturing, she watched him fiddle with a computer and remote before letting out class early in frustration.

And of course, having our last Heritage brings to mind my Heritage weekend, back in the day. Katy and I recollected sitting through Dr. Watson's Brit Lit. She had a legitimate reason for being there, but I was the random engineer wanting to see what these fuzzy liberal arts were like. It was a harbinger of things to come. Aaaaaah, huzzah for being seventeen.

Anyway, this time around, I am on one of the interview committees so I will be sure to shaft all these high-schoolers just like I got shafted. OK, so I won't actually be that cruel, because many of them are scared. It's really sad, actually. :|

I am also becoming increasingly paranoid about commas, due to my English review tutoring. Am I putting commas in the right places? Worlds hang in the balance!

I have seen Pan's Labyrinth twice now, and it is quite probably my favorite movie that I have seen in a long, long time.

It's a Spanish film with subtitles. It takes place during the Franco regime in Spain at the end of WW2. A small band of military officers is trying to quell the last of a group of resistance fighters, who are desperately holding out for the Allied arrival.

A little girl and her mother come to visit the Captain, who has helped them in the past, and after that, the girl has all these crazy adventures. It's something of a fairy tale for adults. It has fantasy elements, but the movie is very dark, and has brief, brutal violence.

It's just creepy enough to be interesting without making you worry that the boogy man will jump out in the next scene. Not to mention the soundtrack is amazing.

I should start taking more pictures of stuff, to put it here.

Today was, without noticeable reason, one of the best days of the semester.

I tested in Principles of Management and felt moderately pleased with how it went. I also showed that class' teacher my revamp of her syllabus, and was pleasantly surprised when she gave me not only a response, but a positive one.

I could show you a few pages of it here, except that I don't own Microsoft Publisher on my PC. Instead, it shall go into my portfolio. Oh yes, I have a portfolio now. Wooooo.

Then I worked my section of English Review with Kelly and Annie. It's funny, that class. It's full of engineers and flight science majors who don't care at all about writing, and because of this class they have to think about grammar harder than most English majors do.

On some level, though, I actually enjoy explaining stuff to them. And inevitably, our "conferences" end with a casual talk about the paper's subject, which is usually some hobby or happening that they think about passionately. It's cool.

And then Andrew took me to Starbuck's to use his gift card. It's overpriced and a lightning rod for rich, snobby businessmen and high school girls, but it sure is fun.

And then homework and then dinner and then a long talk in the cafeteria with quality people, and then an unnecessarily risque episode of The Office!

And then our reading group read the final act of Hamlet, littering the floor with bodies as the poison flowed and messengers bid the soldiers shoot.

More homework and then a Taco Bell run with my suite mates, which started a Mountain Dew-fueled conversation about tasers.

And now I am *not* writing my music review on the new Shins album.

I normally try to include a picture with these posts, and I've grown more conscious about how to do that in a good way because of Visual Literacy class, but I couldn't find a good or recent picture of something.

So instead, I point your attention to the picture behind my sidebar, which has been there for some time, except to say, that I was there, in Botswana, taking that picture on almost this exact day one year ago.

Here's my review for the current issue of the LETU YellowJacket, to hit CPO's near you* very soon!

* (If you live at LETU.)



"Oh! Gravity." is the sixth LP album from Switchfoot, one of the most successful Christian bands. They are best known for past hits "Meant to Live," "Dare You to Move," and "Stars." Their newest album was released on December 26, 2006.

Switchfoot are a southern California band well known for their clean, radio-friendly rock sound, as well as their love for surfing. Some of Switchfoot's detractors say that their sound is very much like a Christian contemporary praise band.

However, Switchfoot have distanced themselves from the remainder of Christian rock to achieve wide success on secular music charts. "Oh! Gravity." takes them even further from typical Christian rock and into fresh, exciting musical territory.

The album has very cohesive lyrics, dealing primarily with the fleeting nature of wealth and material happiness. The second track "American Dream" says, "Sucess is equated with excess... I want out of this machine, it doesn't feel like freedom, this ain't my american dream."

Even with six albums behind them, Switchfoot are bringing this uncommon and very fresh message to the radio.

Musically, the album has the heavier, ringing guitars of Switchfoot's last album, "Nothing is Sound." Lead singer and songwriter Jon Foreman quite obviously has more fun and freedom with not only his lyrics, but his vocal delivery on this album.

The best new introduction is a surprising and very fitting Rolling Stones influence on a few of their songs, notably "Dirty Second Hands" and "Amateur Lovers." This is demonstrated not only in the guitar playing, but in the use of sitars and Foreman's improvisational, stuttering passages. The effect sounds strange in writing but works great on the album.

First single and title track "Oh! Gravity." features a psychedelic video to match the album's cover art. The song muses about how strange it is that people's lives fall apart in a world governed by laws like gravity. The song has a great sense of movement as the band rips through the track in two and a half minutes.

"Awakening" is a power ballad about rebirth and new life. Previous fans of "Dare You to Move" would especially enjoy this song. The Rhapsody music service features an acoustic version of the song with a very nice harmonica introduction.

"Dirty Second Hands" has a mysterious, meandering verse tune, punctuated with hand claps. The chorus explodes into a very finely produced channel of sound, using several different guitars and a backup choir of Foreman's vocals. The song deals with the passage of time and its effects on our journey through life, illustrated as the hands on a ticking clock.

Some of the album's best lyrics occur in the contemplative "Faust, Midas, and Myself," about a man who dreams that everything he touches turns to gold. Again, Foreman's vocals are spot-on and fit well with a background of strings.

The album's best song is "Amateur Lovers," a Rolling Stones sounding song about how inept people can be at expressing their love for one another. A sitar introduces the song as it settles into a first verse over a solo bass line with tamborines. Foreman hardly sings the chorus but yells it instead, providing not only a memorable moment for the album but a nice contrast with basically all their previous work.

A brief synth strings bridge leads into the ending of the song, where Foreman stutters and whispers the word "professional" while the band builds into a rollicking climax. This is a song that deserves to be seen live.

Switchfoot fans at LeTourneau might have that opportunity soon. The band is currently on tour and will come through Houston, Austin, and Dallas at the end of March 2007. For more information about the band and to see their videos, visit http://www.switchfoot.com/.

I have Spanish homework.

I have heartburn.

I have brown eyes.

I have a glass mug.

I have shown four different uses of the word have.

I have better things to do.

I subscribe to CNN, BBC, and Al-Jazeera and scan the headlines a few times a day, but consistently my favorite of the three is the BBC.

This is one of the most even-handed, historically informed analyses of the Iran situation that I have ever read. I really wish I had this sort of insight. Just beware all the liberal British comments lambasting the writer at the bottom of his article. ;)

Two weeks since my last post. I'm back at LETU for another semester, taking four classes and working a few hours for two jobs (Admissions monkey and English tutor).

It's biting cold since late last week and the puddles are only beginning to melt and disappear. I'm with the newspaper again and have a muic review written for the next issue.

I am also writing a story about the exchange students here from Handong. One of them happens to be a fellow in one of my English discussion labs there, so I was really happy to be here to see him.

My Admissions work is the same old same old exactly as I left it. The brochures are new but the office and all the little equipment is the same. It feels good to be making money again.

The tutoring job with the university's Owlet program is a bit more exciting to me, not just for the work but because I'll learn better how to teach others to write well. I've helped people with this before but nobody's ever sat down to tell me how.

I am still terrified of Spanish but it will be OK. The teacher is really hitting us hard at first but that's exactly what we need. My Watson classes are going to be great. I am especially excited about Visual Literacy.

From just an introductory class, I believe the class focuses on how layout and images work in conjunction with writing to communicate a message. Our first assignment, due tomorrow, is to find a picture representing each decade of the 20th century and to briefly describe why we chose each picture.

OK, this is one more BBC News article I just had to post... absolutely hilarious...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6225869.stm

This stolen from Abigail's blog...

1) Where were you when 2006 began?
Kokomo, Indiana, with me folks.

2) What was your least favorite moment of the year?
OK, just a warning... probably most of these answers are going to involve traveling, because those were some of the best (and worst) moments of the year. My least favorite moment was staying awake all night on the sidewalk at Gimpo Airport in Korea so that no one would steal my suitcases.


3) What was your favorite moment of the year?
Wow, so hard to decide. My first ascent of Mt. Lajuma was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen (a few pictures are on Flickr.) Also, probably the best feeling of 2006 was actually catching a flight from DC to Indianapolis that, by all accounts, I should have missed. I cannot begin to describe that feeling of relief. :D

Wow. My favorite and least favorite moments both involve airports. hahahah


4) What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I turned 21 this year. It was just a normal school day at Handong, and nobody knew it was my birthday until someone happened to randomly ask that evening, and then my good pal Jin went and bought me a pizza and a few bottles of Pepsi.


5) Were you in a relationship in 2006?
Nope.


6) Did you breakup with anyone in 2006?
Nope.


7) Did you make any new friends in 2006?
Tons. But I don't speak to a lot of them any more. :(


9) What date from 2006 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
Well, specific dates get into my head because they are flight dates, but other than those, I suppose the word August was in my thoughts a lot, because it was the month I would get to see my LETU friends after 8 months away.


9) Did you travel outside of the US in 2006?
Oh yes.


10) What was the best book you read?
I read a number of books I enjoyed. Probably my favorite was Casanova, by Andrew Miller. It is something of an historical novel. But I would say I fell in love with the author even more than the book. I am convinced that good writers just see the world in different terms and conceive ways to express that in terms most people enjoy, but cannot themselves create. Grammar and all that is secondary. Miller's writing is filled with things like that.


11) Did you miss anybody in the past year?
Yeah. Pretty much everybody I wasn't actually with. :D


12) What was your favorite movie that you saw in 2006?
I can't even remember the movies I've seen this year. I just found a list of 2006 movies, let me see... a lot of movies weren't particularly great for me, but there were a few a cut above the rest. I liked Crash and Inside Man. Cars was also pretty good. Oh, and seeing V for Vendetta in Pohang with Korean subtitles was pretty funny.


13) What was your favorite song from 2006?
Wow, way too many to pick one. But... just for the sake of picking something, I'll say Other Side of the World by KT Tunstall. I first heard it on the way to South Africa. I loved the sound and the words really clicked with where I was at the time... I forgot about the song until the flight back, and then I heard it again on the flight to Korea. So, for a month and a half, it was this wonderful little sad song that I only heard on airplane flights, until I got it in Korea.


14) Who were you most thankful for in 2006?
Probably the same answer as something like this I did last year... lots of people, my family of course. I also really appreciated andrew spencer this last semester, because he is one of the very, very, very few people who sticks with me and cares about how I'm doing even when I'm in a rotten mood.


15) What did you do in 2006 that you'd never done before?
Eat at McDonald's multiple times in a week. :D


17) What was your most embarrassing moment of 2006?
I know I must've had some, but to be honest I can't really think of one. I think embarrasment comes when you are putting on airs, or trying to be someone you're not. If you are honest, then you apologize for mistakes... and then most embarrasments become mere misunderstandings.

Having said that, there was this time a month or two ago when I was talking to this girl I'd just met, and she said a few things that I interpreted to mean, she was pregnant. I never told her I thought this, but her friend found out and laughed at me to no end about it. But I thought it was more funny than embarrasing.


18) What valuable life lesson did you learn in 2006?
The best food and the most beautiful women of the world live in Uzbekistan.


19) What are your plans for 2007?
Compared with last year's plans, surprisingly little.


20) What were you doing when 2006 ended?
Laying on a chair beside my granny's pool, watching stars and listening to the fireworks and gunshots.

It's 2007, folks! Here's what some folks in Nantes think about it...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6222153.stm