'11/14/08 - 'Election and other gubbins'

So, the right man for the job won the election. Excellent news I must say. I stayed up pretty late watching all the speeches and reactions. Both candidates spoke well, and I went to bed with a renewed positivity about America.

I'm not from here as most people know, but I do like living here, and I hate to see the place go down the shitter. I live in a state where (58%) voted for McCain and that's fine, a lot more people voted for Barack than I thought they would.

I've had several discussions with people about their opinions on what happened. People have asked me who I voted for if I could vote and I've been honest. The reaction from some people hasn't surprised me one bit. The racist scum rednecks that I have to be around everyday gave their usual bigoted opinion, to which I just walked away from. It's like they expect me to be like, "oh, yeah I guess you're right after all, I would have voted for the other guy instead." They stand there in disbelief that I have a different opinion than they do. GAH! Sometimes I really want to get into it with these people, but I just don't want to waste my breath, and if I was honest, I'm not educated enough on either candidate to put forward a proper argument.

Not a whole lot to report since my last update. This is our busiest time of the year at work, and it sucks. I've been pretty much none stop for about 3 weeks. Things are looking good though. The economy might be in the toilet, but people are buying our stuff and apparently the economy in Canada isn't doing to bad and our orders from there are increasing. Time will tell. I've been learning a lot about our product manufacturing process and as of yesterday I don't really even need the machine operators anymore to get my samples made. I've designed a spreadsheet to figure out cost even though the guys told me I can't figure out costs without being connected to the machine :D. I also learned how to run the machine, so I don't need to bother them when my boss requests a sample of a product. Feels good, I IZ B LEARNIN'.

Big news is I ordered myself a camera for an early christmas present. It's a Canon Rebel XT. I got it off ebay, 'it's new in box', and I'm very excited to have a camera again. I really liked the old Rebel (300d) that I used at my old job, so I know it'll be a good upgrade from that. Especially after the disappointment of the Sony A1000 we got here at work, this thing is garbage. I plan on getting some extra's like a bag, tripod, and a lens or two. The wide angle I used to use was great.

Something is weird though, I'm struggling to get into that christmas feeling this year. Every year around early November, I start getting the buzz, and it stays with me until pretty much Christmas Eve. Unfortunately, no amount of listening to White Christmas, or Let It Snow is working. I need to start watching my favorite christmas movies and maybe I'll work. I refuse to believe it's the fact I'm getting old.

'11/7/08 - 'Album of the year'

Every year I download albums from various artists, some new, some I've listened to for years. Then I listen to them lots of times through and report on my 'album of the year' whether people care or not. Last year was Maximo Park and I'll get to this year's in just a minute.

I will start off this years round up by stating I've been generally disappointed with all the of the new releases. I went through my collection pretty thoroughly and there was only one album that really stood out.

So my album of the year goes to, 'The Feeling - Join With Us'. It was a pretty easy choice, just about every song on that album it's well written and well produced with a nice mix of ballads and rock songs. I don't know if they're generally considered "pop" but, I suppose that's what they are. Give them a listen.

There were a couple of other good albums, but just lacking the balance or only have one or two good songs, so the honorable mentions go to:

'Death Cab for Cutie - Narrow Stairs': I'd never heard any of their stuff, but I saw I will possess your heart on VH1 and though it was great. Another good song of their off that album is "Cath". A good album but gets kinda lost at the end.

'Extreme - Saudades De Rock': I thought I'd heard my last Extreme song a long time ago, but suddenly they're back and sounding pretty good. It's definitely not their best effort, but they're good musicians with a lot of talent.

Bitter disappointments were;
Ben Folds - Way To Normal, one or two highlights but mostly disappointing for such a great artist.

I spent more time this year going back through all my old stuff and discovering what I used to listen to. I went through a pretty good 80's kick as usual this year, and I've been listening to a mix of Metal and Dance music. I think my music tastes have definitely varied the most this year. 'Course that's probably because of the lack of decent new music keeping me in one direction or another. I wanted to mention Metallica - Death Magnetic and Slipknot's - All Hope is Gone. I really like both the bands, but I was wasn't very exited about either bands effort. Not that they were bad, just not that good.

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