Where do we go from here?

A picture from my balcony. Not anything fantastic, but its nice to look at.  :)

I've been doing some more thinking about my intentions in regard to this blog and I've tried to apply some of the theories that I have learned in my business classes. There are millions of active blogs out there and if I want people to engage with my content, buy my product if you will, I need to offer them something that is:

• Unique - Why read this blog and not another? What can I offer that others can't?
• Specialized - A shotgun affect will not work. I can't just talk about anything; appealing to everyone will appeal to no one.

I've toyed with the possibility of focusing on music talk. Or possibly on my ongoing interest in student productivity. Or maybe even a weekly rant. I love to rant.

So I'm asking all 43 of you (according to Google Analytics) what are the strengths of this blog? What are the weaknesses? What makes you want to read a post? What makes you click away and check your facebook profile instead? do you like long posts less often or short posts more often? Pictures or no? 

Eventually, I would like to have my own website that would act as a brand under which I could present all of my interests, endeavors, and accomplishments. A sort of Toph Portal. But my technical abilities are a limiting factor at the moment. For now, I wan't to do this blog better.

Where are your friends tonight?

Hey kids. Do you ever have a craving for something but can't figure out what it is? My life feels like this lately; I'm needing something but I just decide what it is. Sometimes it turns out to be big things like seeing my parents again or finding a place in the world but other times it simple things, like cookies and good songs.

Yesterday I bought some cookies and today I listened to LCD Soundsystem's (James Murphy's) latest contribution Sound of Silver. This has been one of those albums that seems to find me right when I need it. Like a pet dog (or parrot, or hamster, or whatever you're into) it's there when I need it and not when I don't. I'm not always in the mood for this type of music, but today I was thirsty for it and I didn't even realize it until the album came up on my iTunes-o-matic.

The entire album is exceptional but there are two song's in particular that easily drill into me whenever they come up. "Someone Great" paints the picture of new-fatherhood in a way that I have never heard. In this quite hackneyed genre, I hold Ben Folds' "Still Fighting It" and "Someone Great" in the highest regard but while Folds' version always makes me think of my own father, LCD's leads me to picture myself becoming a father someday.

But that's a song for another day. I'm currently listening to "All My Friends" which directly follows "Someone Great" on the album. When I'm listening to this song, see all of the pictures of my friends on facebook flashing trough my head with the beat of the song. The piano is played in such a way that it evokes images of four or five friends playing it together; there are jumps in timing and it sounds awkward at first but as the song goes on you begin to get more comfortable with the imperfection and at the end you realize that the piano track could not have been more appropriate. Murphy adds more and more tracks (drums, bass, guitar, vocals) and it's like more and more friends are being added to the march.

"You spent the first five years trying to get with the plan
And the next five years trying to be with your friends again."

Some of my friends are abroad as well, some of them back at Skidmore, and some of them have moved to places unknown. When you're away from home for as long as I have been, you begin miss things and people you never thought you would. When you're 10,000 miles away from the people who make up your life, those relationships fall into perspective. I'm not sure if distance makes the heart grow fonder but now that I've been here for a couple months I can say from experience that distance makes the heart more clear. "If I could see all my friends tonight!"

Please don't look at me

I'm quite alarmed at my ability to navigate the train network here in Sydney. From what little time I have spent in New York, I was convinced that no one really understand the subway there. It's impossible for a someone to be able to know which train comes in in which station on which track. I'm quite sure that the whole thing was designed by ferrets and that people in New York only hurry because they anticipate the subway dropping them off in a completely random, unpredictable spot on the island.

Sydney, however, seems have employed actual human beings to plan out the train system. 

Thats not my point though. The engineers who designed the interiors of the cars decided that the seats would have the curious ability to face both forward and backward. The back of each seat is on a pivot that allows it to swing over the top of the seat, effectively swapping the side of the bench that you can put your legs over. After work the other day I was one of the first people to get on one particular car and I chose the first seat I came to; this seat was facing north. As other people started to get on the train after me, they would walk down into the middle of aisle and pick a seat farthest away from the other people on the train. If I was person A sitting in position 1/60, person B would sit in position 60/60, C in 30/60, D in 45/60, E in 15/60 until people started to have to pick seats next to another person. Particularly interesting was that every person who started a new row stopped to flip their seat facing south. Soon, every seat other than the one I was sitting on was facing south, which meant that anyone who sat infront of me would actually be facing directly towards me. He're the kicker: people chose to stand for the duration of the 30 minute commute rather than sit in a seat that was facing mine.

I saddens me to know that 60 or so people will avoid any sort of connection with a person (even if its as simple as sharing leg space with them at all costs. At the next to last stop before I planned on getting off, a girl with a bouquet of irises sat next to me. When I asked her who they were for say replayed, "Someone." I pretended that she meant to give them to me (irises are my favorite flowers) but didnt have the nerve. I wouldn't have accepted them any way, I convinced myself. I don't take flowers from strangers.

Last night we went to a really swanky club. There were loads and loads of people there but the atmosphere was less "Call On Me" than other clubs we've been to. Which is a nice change. i ended up talking to this guy who pulled me aside to compliment my outfit. I was wearing a pink dress shirt with my dads argyle sweater over it. He told me that he would usually pick on "white kids" like me but that I somehow pulled the look off. This is a good thing because I'm not sure how I would hold up in a confrontation with a heavyset man of color. We talked about all kinds of things from living in Vermont to how The GZA's album liquid swords changed the rap scene. When I mentioned that Dr. Dre's album 2001 was my first hip hop purchase, he told me that he and Dre were longtime friends. I talked to this guy for almost 30 minutes. I found out today that the guy was Ice Cube. There were no two more opposite people in that club last night.

Here's a classic.