All my old friends, they don't know me now

I can't stop listening to the newest 'Arcade Fire,' album 'The Suburbs.' I've preached about it already, but not matter what type of music you listen to, you need to be listening to this. Each time I think about singling out a particular song, I become attached to another. To make it easy I'll just embed one of the most popular singles from the album. Enjoy.




-Finished the book Methland recently (as referenced in previous posts). Kind of disappointing the author chose to focus only on three or four characters within their town. The D.E.A. stories and folklore was much more interesting. I wanted to hear more about how they combated and took down meth labs instead of a young councilman and his family troubles. The author still does great research and weaves a great true story about the town of Oelwein, Iowa and it's struggles with the drug culture.

-What did surprise me though, was the fact that meth in these towns has proliferated because it was allowing people to work longer hours at their factory jobs, or two jobs at a time. These people weren't shooting heroin in an abandoned house, but trying methamphetmine to support their way of life. It was fromt that point that things went downhill.

-Interesting that CVS and Target are shown as villains for not ID'ing or stopping people from buying multiple forms of cold medicine in which a vital component of meth is drawn from. Seems simple enough to track people in their computer databases, but they compain that they don't want to 'police' people at their stores. In essence, they are a big part of the drug trade.

-Currently reading a large book about Pearl Harbor. Eerily familiar how we a government and military knew both attacks (Dec. 7th, 9/110 were immenently impending yet were completely unprepared for both. Different situations to be sure, but same lack of preperation. The book made an apt analogy in saying america's attitude was that no one would be dumb enough to attack us, it would be as incredulous as "...a mouse attacking the cat."

-I'd like to retract what I previously said about Rebbeca Black. She was on Leno and was every bit as bad as one could imagine. Didn't help that her lip syncing track started before she could even get out of her chair.

-Barefoot running still a hit, still love the shoes. Nice enough out for the bike too. Exciting times.

3/18

Have not posted in a while, because I have been employed in the form of waiting tables. It is not bad work, and I come home with decent cash in my pocket each night. Harder work than anyone really knows outside of the business. Helps that my place of business is located in one of the most rich and eclectic areas of Pittsburgh.

-Finished the books, 'A Prayer for Owen Meany,' and 'Water for Elephants.' Meany was perhaps the most complete and fascinating John Irving book I've read to date, but I still need read 'The World According to Garp,' to feel satisfied.

Elephants lived up to the hype, more or less. The story itself is top notch along with the characters, but the dialogue is lacking and phony at certain junctures. It is fairly obvious the author hasn't written many full-length novels. I'm sure I'll still be at the movie the day of its release with millions of sobbing teenagers and soccer-mom-book-clubs.

-Currently reading the book 'Methland.' Interesting look into small towns and how Methamphetamine has slowly eroded their way of life in every facet. I've seen some of this firsthand, and I can say the book is dead-on. Sad stuff.

-Downloaded the new Decemberists album. By far their best work, albeit short and folksier than any of their previous ventures. I feel as though with the addition of one more song, or longer tracks, it could be damned close to a perfect listening.

-Speaking of perfect, the new Arcade Fire album, 'The Suburbs,' comes even closer to it. No wonder it took home the big award at the grammys. Well deserving of it, and was heart-warming to see the their committee buck popular opinion on multiple things (especially best new artist).

-Both of those albums were downloaded 100% legally through amazon.com -- promise.