Uhh… Still Trying…

Yeah, so I’m a little behind. I haven’t mapped out my daily schedule yet. Haven’t found the time. Yeah, I realize there’s something ironic there funny about that wrong with me. Working on it, really. I can’t say I’ve been completely unproductive in the past few days, though. I’m truly not hopeless. Believe me, please.

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In other news, I have not yet seen The Dark Knight though everyone, and I mean everyone (with the sole exception of my manager at work*), has exclaimed it to be a fantastic movie, if not the most fantastical movie ever imagined. We’ll see when I can schedule in a viewing.

Does anyone out there have a negative review of the movie? Did anybody just not like it or think it was terribly directed/acted? I want to make sure I have my facts straight before I invest my couple of hours. …Ha, yeah right… I’ve wasted more time sitting here waiting for Tanner’s Twitter updates. Keep ’em coming, Roommate!

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*My manager didn’t hate the movie. He just didn’t believe it lived up to the hype. Or something like that. I only remember him saying it wasn’t all that great and that I shouldn’t waste my time. Well, I guess that does mean he didn’t like it, doesn’t it? Maybe he’s not a Batman guy… though I suppose the giant poster of Tom Hanks as a FedEx employee in Castaway hanging up in his office tells me what kind of hero he is into.

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To Be Better

I’ve been noticing something about myself lately that I realize needs work or at least some direct shaping. I enjoy many different activities on my own time which include, but are not limited to, playing guitar, writing songs, recording music, attempting video editing, becoming a decent photo manipulator/editor (the graphic design side of things), Biblical scholarship and the academic side of my passions or what I spent most of my time in school doing.

I don’t think having these different interests are a bad thing, per se, but my problem is my deep desire to be excellent at them all, to master each ability. That’s not necessarily bad either; I’m realizing for myself that it’s not easy to be a jack-of-all-trades at the moment. When I invest so much time in so many different activities I compromise the level of skill at which I perform any one of them. While I want to be capable of doing many things I think I want more to be excellent at any one of them rather than mediocre at them all.

I think I know what I should be focusing on. I think I know what I need to prioritize, I just have yet to walk that out fully. It’s hard to say goodbye to or dial back the other activities for a spell though I know that’s what I need right now.

I don’t know how well it’ll work but I’m going to attempt to live my life for a week or so according to a schedule mapping out my activities down to the minute. Well, maybe not so specific but it’ll definitely add more structure to my days than the way I’ve been living. I’ll factor in times to read, study, practice, learn new things about recording, etc. It’ll require a bedtime (which, honestly, could only help me at this point) and a prompt wake-up time and, of course, some cushion for when nothing goes according to schedule. My week right now is one big cushion.

This might be fun. I think I’ve tried this once during college but gave up somewhere around the 2nd hour of my 1st day. Here’s to a more (semi-)organized life.

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Doppelgänger

Some say that somewhere in the world everyone has a twin, someone who looks exactly like them. That’s an odd thought but if I was, say, a one-in-a-million kind of guy that would mean there are about 6,000 of me floating around there. If you think that’s disturbing, consider the fact that I’ve seen at least three of my “twins.” It’s like looking into a living mirror – Bizarro Joshes walking around out there.

I get an email every week from a church group that meets on Monday nights called “The Venue.” It’s a popular group in town and a good meeting but I think I’ve only attended two services in my lifetime. Well, the email talks about the upcoming meeting, other events going on around town and also includes some pictures from past services. The pictures are your standard choices – shots of worship, shots of the speaker and assorted images of the crowd interacting after the service. Yesterday’s email had all the same elements and I skimmed through it like I always do until my eyes came across this image:

I was shocked. Stunned. I don’t know who these guys are. I’ve never met them. But look at them! We know they already have doppelgängers floating in the world, or maybe more accurately, they’re somebody else’s twin. Can’t you see it? It’s a freakin’ celebrity match-up. I mean, wow. Ladies and gentlemen, may I present Dawson’s Creek star James Van Der Beek and NBA MVP Kobe Bryant. Are you not stunned as well?

God, I don’t know how you do it.

Have you ever met your “twin” floating around out there? Or would you say the whole theory is nonsense? Nah, you wouldn’t say that. Dawson is all the proof you need!

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Score!

If only I got more emails like this…

Why on earth would my mail client call this junk?

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That’s Handy

For those of you on Twitter who also love buying music (as opposed to stealing it) but don’t like paying a lot of money for music (which is why you steal it) you should follow “Amazonmp3”. It gives you a daily tweet letting you know which already-low-priced album is priced even lower for the day. We’re talking $3.99 or less.

If you’re not familiar with AmazonMP3, let me be the first to say it’s pretty fantastic. They sell DRM-free, high-quality (usually 256 kbps) mp3s for around 89¢ each.

I realize that you don’t have to be on Twitter to find Amazon’s Daily Deals. But I do love me some convenience.

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Where The Light Is, Pt. II

Yeah, that was $10 well spent.

Where The Light Is: John Mayer, Live in Los Angeles is such a good DVD. Great songs accompanied by stunning visuals make for an enjoyable show. If you are a John Mayer fan of just about any degree you’ll get a kick out of this. He does this show as three acts: an acoustic set to open, the John Mayer Trio and then the full band to close out the night. He proves that he has these multiple personalities and he sells each of them all so well. He could of done an entire show as any of the three entities and it would be difficult not to be engaged throughout. He’s a great performer/artist and he entertains. And, well, his songs are pretty great.

I wasn’t always a John Mayer fan. Early on, when everyone was crazy about his album Room for Squares and a lot of his early, solo acoustic work I didn’t care for it. I wanted not to like him. He seemed cocky and that bugged me about him. I didn’t give him a chance, really. It wasn’t until I heard the John Mayer Trio record and Continuum that I realized that this guy is a stellar musician. I love that album, Continuum, top to bottom. Only then did I even purchase his second album to catch up, as it were.

But yeah, good music. Beautifully captured. $10. Not bad.

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Where The Light Is, Pt. I

So, I learned Tuesday that John Mayer released a new live concert album/DVD. After viewing the DVD’s tralier on iTunes I was sold. I went out today (Wednesday) and picked it up for a pleasant $9.99. I got home from work and realized that my DVD/TV setup right now is not at all ideal for a live concert experience. I’ve had the DVD player audio running into the TV (actually, only one of the two audio outputs, since the TV only has one input) and I knew that the TV speakers wouldn’t do. So, I slid my stereo over across my desk, rearranged speakers of said stereo, have terrible amounts of clutter on my now unusable desk and now have a setting for some music. If there was any feng shui going on in my room it’s all gone now. But this song playing in the menu section of the DVD sounds fantastic. Totally worth the complete loss of spiritual energy in my room. Yep.

I’ll let you know if the DVD is actually any good.

I also feel a little weird now about posting a picture of John Mayer in this post.

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