Music

I'm sitting here, listening to Michael Jackson's 'Blood On The Dance Floor'.
I wouldn't consider this album one of my favorites, but still for some reason I suddenly wanted to listen to it.
MJ makes pop. That's what he always did, that's what he's good at. Among real musicians, pop is considered a four-letter word (it only has three, though), but MJ is a genius of pop, and when you're a musical genius at any genre, people listen.

But that isn't what I wanted to write. I wanted to write about music, and try to explain why I love it so much, explain what's so great about it. But that's almost impossible. Still I will write some of my thoughts about the subject.

I have quite an exclusive taste in music. I prefer listening to very complex and virtuoso ("technical" is popular term these days) music to pop, anytime. But still I recognise the musical value of a simple techno beat, and even the value of a Kiley Minouge song!
Sometimes even a simple chord progression on a synthisizer on top of a nice drum-machine loop can be beautyfull in my eyes (or ears).
Don't take me wrong: most of the time I despise the usual simple, mindless music you hear everywhere you go. Most of the time I do my best to educate people to raise their musical standarts. But when I stop and think about it, I know that everything musical - every note, every unique sound, every rhytmic pattern - makes me feel happy to be alive.
I know it sounds like I'm speaking metaphorically, but I really believe that. I really wouldn't like to live in a world that has no music. This belief is the basis of my 'open-mindness', which is crucial for my music appreciation.
And speaking of music appreciation and open minds, I think it's a crying shame that somehow the majority of society does not pay music its due respect, and just neglects music appreciation.

Now I will put open-mindness aside and start raving about how it's important to always progress in your listening. Look, it's popular to claim that music is a matter of taste (and it also saves hours on pointless arguing), but it's just not true.
Now, what do I mean by that? Of course there's a matter of taste in music. For instance, one person may claim that Mozart is the best and another person may claim that about Bach. These people have different taste. But when someone claims that Britney Spears is better than Beethoven, well, that someone is wrong. There are two factors that can make that claim half true: 1. Mood. 2. Purpose (dancing, listening, backround music and such...).

In conclusion, Music is great. If you don't believe me, just listen to the first bars of Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake" played on a piano. Think about it: the air around you moves a little different, and you just want to bust out crying.

The third week

Yesterday I have started another week of the analysis course, which is the third out of 14. Most of the course's hours are dedicated to work on the team project, but we can take these hours off if we make good progress. My team is progressing nicely, so I have some free time for myself.
The free time is spent mostly on a pet project of mine - a ASP.Net calendar with Javascript.
I know, kind of geeky, but it's fun for me.
I'm making myself spend more of my free time, though, on important arrangements that always get pushed aside as well.
For instance, I'm trying to switch banks, for better commisions. This task requires opening a new bank account, getting a new credit card, setteling the old credit cards bill for the last month (can be done only at the start of the month), closing the old credit card account and finally closing the old bank account (which requires me to first cancel an automatic savings order, and that has to be done on a specific day of the month)!
And I didn't even mention all the paperwork involved. I hate bureaucracy. I even hate the word bureaucracy.
Handling all these new "chores" is very new to me because I would usually avoid these things, or put them off until further notice.
I can actually feel my responsability muscles getting firm.

And that reminds me: I am also dedicating some time to start getting in shape. You know, running around the block, doing some sit-ups and pull-ups and stuff. I should really keep it up until I will make a habit of it.

Oh, how I miss the old times when one could just be a lazy computer potatoe and be anything but grown-up...

More about Mr. me

Yo.
This post is dedicated to giving out more info about myself, so here goes:

1. As you probably figured out (or knew before), I serve in the Israeli army (or IDF). My job is to write computer applications for the army. In August I took part in the Hitnatkut, as mentioned in the previous post, and shortly after returning to my unit (in the Hitnatkut I was in a unit specificaly made for that mission) I went to an Extended System Analysis course, which I am now on its second week.

2. You can tell from my occupation that I have a thing for computers. This passion started when I was a kid and played a whole bunch of quests (adventure games), specifically by Sierra On-Line, and Lucas Arts. Back then I fantasized alot about writing my own games, and that drove my to pursue a scholarly interest in software programming. For years I considered computers my "most loved" field of interest.

3. During the latter years of my schooling, I became more and more interested in listening alot to music. This first included MTV, old 60's pop, Michael Jackson. Later I progressed to Radiohead and Queen (as a kid I was always exposed to Queen, being my big brother's favorite band, but I never listened to them purposefully). Then I was suddenly exposed to Metallica and I immediately connected to their music and the Metal/Thrash genre. At that time my friends and me started toying with the notion of forming a band. This led to mutual musical education within our group: I introduced Queen to them, they introduced Pink Floyd, and so on. Also, we began exploring new bands that caught our attention - Led Zeppelin, Iron Maiden, Dream Theater, Symphony X, Rhapsody, Children Of Bodom, Treasure Land, Megadeth, and many more. In addition, I extended my interest to the fields of Jazz, Classical music and old Rock (The Beatles and such).

4. In our little "band", I began studying and playing drums. I studied at the local conservatory, with a classicaly trained teacher. It didn't really work, because I was always nagging him to teach me double-bass technique, which he wasn't really familiar with. I stopped taking lessons after a year of learning the basics. At least I got my teacher hooked on Symphony X. Hehehe. Since then I've been teaching myself the songs that I wanted to play. Since joining the army, my hours of practicing dwindled awefully low.

5. At the current phase of my life, I have recently started renting an apartment with a friend from the army, and the guitar player from my now-ancient "band". I have brought my drum kit to the apartment, and will soon get back into drumming shape (as I said, my bit of my technique was lost due to the army). I also plan on further studying musical theory and on starting to compose music (probably with the help of computers).

That's it for today, folks. Drive home safely now, ya hear?

Water your plants

Finally, I got around to writing the second post...
I didn't think I would take so much time in between posts, but that's what you get when you plan to start off with a deep (and heavy) journal of thoughts.
I believe it will take me some time to really open up in my blog-writing, but I've got time.

So anyway, when I first opened this blog I planned on documenting my expirience of the Hitnatkut, the Israeli evacuation of settlements in the Gaza strip.
I thought I would need some kind of journal to deel with the emotions from that mission, but I ended up censurizing myself everytime I started a new post. But instead I leaned on my friends for mental support and understanding.
It worked well enough, since I have not gone perminantly insane (not more than how I used to be, that is), and I even think I did some growing up during the last few months.

Well, that's enough for this post. I promise I will start wring more of them alot more often.

BTW, today I have learned a new usefull word: Sternocleidomastoids. It's the name of those beautyful V-shaped muscles in the front base of the neck.

See ya, and have a great time!