Nights of High Tension

Well, last night was another of my random sleepless, high-blood-pressure, paranoia-filled nights where I wonder what's wrong with me and if my heart is just going to randomly stop beating. It all started earlier in the evening while watching tv. If one's heartbeat were like a hand gently rapping at a steady pace on a door, all of a sudden it was like the hand gave 3 or 4 faster, pounding raps and then went back to normal. After that I kept checking my BP, which over the next few hours ranged minute to minute from normal (125/75) to 135/85 to 150/96, but typically hovering in the 140/90 range. I hadn't been stressed or nervous or even had caffeine. I had my (mostly) sleepless night and this morning took my BP again -- it was still around 140/90 -- then dropped to 135/85 after a couple of minutes.

It's times like these that I wonder if I will survive my 30s. If my BP is this crazy now -- what will happen when I have a stressful job and wife and kids and mortgage?

Anyway...last night was the Battlestar Galactica series finale. I know none of my friends watch the show, so there's not much point in commenting on it here. Nevertheless, it was a pretty solid ending. I've found that most often when my favorite shows come to an end, the final episodes feel forced and lifeless or are just completely unsatisfying. Seinfeld, anyone?

Well, maybe it's my high/erratic blood pressure this morning, but I can't seem to stay focused writing this. Can't seem to stay interested in typing things.... like if your favorite team were playing and the game was on tv, but you had the stomach flu...so you had a hard time caring as much as normal or even watching the game. And instead you just went into the bathroom and laid down on the tile floor and wished you felt normal so that you could care about the game like you knew you should.

Another Spring Break Bites The Dust

Well, I don't know how many of you watched Battlestar Galactica's second-to-last episode ever last night. In fact, I can't name a single friend that I know watches the show. In any event, last night's episode was a very good one - very intense and building up to next week's 2 hour finale.

I have a lot of work to do today, but I'm considering only spending a couple of hours on it and then running off to the movies. I woke up this morning thinking I had to stay at home today because there would be carpenters here. But due to the rain, they've decided to not work today and instead come tomorrow. So, now I have the day free (other than my work) and tomorrow I have to remain here. Hmm....what to do...

So my spring break is over and what did we learn? Well, we learned that the Weezer song "The Spider" is still too depressing to listen to all the way through. We learned that just because you say you're going to have a nice relaxing day to yourself doesn't mean you won't find yourself cleaning out basements, trailers, and unloading truck-bed's full of tools in torrential downpours. We learned that March is still a lousy excuse for a month. We learned that when you grow your hair out for 7 months and then go to get it trimmed (just a bit) you might not be happy with the results. We also learned that spring breaks spent at home go by just as quickly as those spent drinking and getting skin cancer in warmer locations.

The other day I finally turned on the Genius program on Itunes. I had been fearful of doing this as it scans your music library for information and then sends it to Apple. However, it claims that it does so anonymously. Well, I took the plunge and now Apple has all sorts of secret info on me. I had heard people rave about the supposedly "eerily perfect" playlists that Genius creates. Uh...I'm just not seeing it. I keep giving Genius shots at coming up with playlists and I'm not seeing at all how they are supposed to be so great. Basically it seems like it starts with a random song and then selects songs by similar artists to go with it. Maybe that's the point...and maybe that is a good idea...but I like a little more variety. I have almost 3,000 songs on my Itunes and a wide range of different artists. Yet when Genius fills a 25 song list I'll find maybe 12 different artists and often multiple songs from the same album. In a 25 song list I shouldn't find 2 songs from Thom Yorke's solo album - considering that there are about 10 songs on that album and those are the only 10 Thom Yorke songs out of the 3,000 on my computer.

But the real reason I wanted to try Genius was for the new music recommendations. It's supposed to offer up selections from the Itunes store that you would like based on your library. I've been a little more happy with this aspect of the program, but again feel like there should be more variety. In the Itunes store they'll offer a list of 15 recommended songs with a "more" tab that keeps generating more lists. There have been a lot of good ones on there that have caught my interest. However, I keep seeing the same bands and even same albums over and over again. I have an astounding number of Pearl Jam, Radiohead, and Muse songs on my computer - but I don't seem to be getting a lot of recommendations that are similar to them. Instead I get a lot of indie bands (which for the most part I'm not into) and seemingly random rock songs that I've never heard of. Also they're really pushing the Smashing Pumpkins Rarities album. Nearly every 15 song list has a track from that album on it.

So my jury is still out on Genius, but I'd like to hear what others have to say about it.

Another complaint about Itunes and its music catalogue: how come I can't find all the b-sides and rare tracks that I want? Why offer a seemingly random selection of such songs and not all of them? I guess this is on the artists/labels themselves. If you're going to sell your music on Itunes, why not make all of it available? Kudos to Radiohead for making a solid effort in this regard. But they still need to make those extra tracks from their last album available.

Okay, time to get some work done....and then maybe an attempt at fun today...